


In My Arms

by TheAvianDragon (orphan_account)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, Internalized Homophobia, It's my first story so I have NO idea how tags work, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Keith is a Pure boy, Like, Look basically it's super fluffy, M/M, Merperson Keith (Voltron), Mutual Pining, Oblivious Keith (Voltron), Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Sexuality Crisis, Slow Burn, They refuse to admit they're gay for eachother, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, but they're super gay for eachother, klance, mermaid, not really - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 15:07:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 38,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14083605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/TheAvianDragon
Summary: How could Keith know that his new hang out spot was in full view of a (rather attractive) olive-skinned human? He couldn't, that's how. He also clearly couldn't have known that the shock of seeing a mermaid was enough to send the human spiralling off the edge of the cliff.Oh, he also couldn't have known that the simple act of saving this human set his life down a completely different track, one with love, friendship and danger around every corner.





	1. Humans.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this was originally posted on my Tumblr, but it just became excessive to have like 12+ chapters posed on site.  
> [My Tumblr](https://theaviandragon.tumblr.com/) If you want to talk to me, I'm always checking it!

_Humans._

The word tasted poisonous and sour on Keith's tongue, the amount of hate he felt for that word was unmeasurable. Humans are bad, that's all he could say about them, anything longer than that gave them more respect than they deserved. Keith didn't always detest the two-legged creatures, not at all. In a time that seemed like an eternity ago, Keith was fascinated by humans - or as he once called them - people. 

As a child, he used to sit and watch them for hours, fascinated by their rituals and behaviors. He'd watch as a group of humans would wail and laugh around this big red thing - which his mother later explained was something called _fire_. They'd stick the items they consumed for sustenance onto dirty sticks and would burn them in the fire, for a reason that was beyond Keith. 

Keith and his mother would wake up before the sun rose every morning. They'd swim up to the surface and watch the sunrise over the ocean. Keith soon learnt that some humans awoke earlier than others, they'd been running up and down along the shore, seemingly running from something. But, apparently, they did it for this thing called exercise? Clearly, it was a waste of energy, but maybe they have too much energy from the burning of their food items? Who knows. 

Every morning without fail, Keith's mother would wake up before anyone else. She's swim up to the surface, and check if the coast was clear and if it was as safe as it was the day before. She'd then swim back to her home and wake up Keith, gently guiding him to the surface to watch as human life started up again like it had for thousands of years. The fact that nothing ever changed on the surface was comforting. The ocean was unpredictable and untamable, yet the sand on the shore was the same day after day. It was comforting for Keith, especially in a time where nothing else was.

She'd always float just behind Keith, making sure her young one kept a safe distance from the shore and was hidden from the humans. When the sun was completely in the sky, they'd return to their home to have breakfast with Keith's dad, it was simple, but it was perfect. He never wished for anything more, he was content with the way things were. 

Then, of course, everything changed. Keith knew something was wrong when he woke up with the sun was already shining through his window. It wasn't the first time he had woken up before his mother... sometimes she was just too sick to swim with him, but he felt something was off. The house felt... colder for some reason. Even with the light shining through the water everything was darker in the young boys eyes. 

He swam into his parent's room to find his dad hunched over the spot where his mother usually slept, sobbing. It didn't take long for Keith to put two and two together, tears quickly welled up in his eyes and dissipated into the water around him before he even had the satisfaction of them rolling down his rosy cheeks. Keith and his father never found any proof that the humans were responsible for this mothers disappearance, but what else could it have been? Surely she wouldn't have just up and left, she would have at least said goodbye... right?

Regardless of the logistics of the situation, that's the day that Keith grew to hate humans. He stopped watching the sunrise, and he only ever went to the surface to get away from the constant judgement he was subjected to in the ocean. His father was a shell of a man, his house was empty and cold. The laughter that once filled his house, disappeared the day that she did. The town searched for weeks and weeks, yet no one could find her. The numbers of volunteers slowly dwindled until it was just Keith - aged merely twelve - searching the ocean for his mother. Alone.

Keith quickly blossomed into manhood, he shed his baby fat and started working out (anything to take his mind off the whispers around town). His tail got longer and started changing colour from it's blanket of black to a pattern of red and black scales, tapering down to a long fan like black tail. He couldn't care less about his looks, and wouldn't have even noticed how _'hot'_ he was if it wasn't for giggles of the teenage mermaids that he passed every morning. He had no interest in the mermaids, at least the ones he had met, they were loud and frankly annoying.

He only went to the surface to relax, finding a secluded rock - far away from any humans and laid there for hours and hours. He'd watch the clouds go by as his tail swished in the water below him, gently hanging off the rock. It was nice, the only moments of peace he got during his days. Away from the hustle and bustle of underwater life, he was just Keith when he was alone. Not Keith the guy who's practically an orphan. Not Keith who lost his mother and whose father stopped being a dad. Just Keith.

He'd listen out for humans, being prepared to dash if need be, but he rarely came across them. Most people seemed to hide in big buildings for most of the day, only coming out to travel to a different building for the night. He was at least grateful they were loud beasts, they gave him enough warning if they planned on reeking havoc. For better or worse, humans were objectively bad at sneaking up on things. If they somehow managed to keep their mouths shut, they were stomping around instead. 

The only time humans were hard to hide from was when the earth rotated closer to the sun, causing the temperature to rise. This seemed to initiate some kind of ritual where humans flocked to bodies of water, mainly small humans. Keith knew for a fact that humans couldn't breathe in water, so it always baffled him as to why they enjoyed splashing around in something that could easily kill them. 

He once heard some kids yelling something about _summor_ time. _Sammor? Sumur?_ Something like that at least. It just so happened that this _summor_ time was beginning today, it made Keith's life harder, to say the least. The only place without humans he could find was a small rock that sat a few meters away from a cliff. It wasn't ideal, but at least it was safe.

Keith flung himself out of the water and onto the rock, lying down as he swished his tail lightly through the water. listening to the distant sounds of children laughing, wind rustling the leaves of the nearby trees and water lapping at the rock he was lying on. 

He heard some birds squawk in the distance, the chirps sounded somewhat human, much like jumbled words. The squawking soon cleared as it got closer, turning from indistinguishable sounds to yelling. There was a quiet thumping in the distance, slowly growing louder as the yelling did too. It was made abundantly clear that a group of humans were quickly climbing the cliff Keith was laying under. 


	2. The Missing Ball

When Keith heard the sound of chatter from the group of humans, he didn't know what moved faster. His heart or his tail. He instantly started splashing around, probably making way more noise than he should have. He whipped his tail around trying to get off the rock, it's at times like this he wished he had legs.

He couldn't just stand up and dive, he had to slowly scoot forwards, grinding his tail on the rock as he did so. Mermaids really weren't built for quick movement above land. "Guys! I hear splashing! There may be dolphins!" A squeaky female voice called out, the sound of feet moving getting faster as the humans seemingly picked up to a run.

"Lance! Stop running so fast!" Another female voice yelled, this time more prim and proper like she was above all of this.

"Never!!  I'm going to be the first one to see a dolphin!" This time a male voice spoke, seemingly the person named Lance. Something about that voice made Keith's heart pick up its pace, feeling like it was ready to beat out of his chest. Was he scared? Was that the feeling he was feeling? Whatever it was, it was new. Keith hated new.

With a new found 'fear' he pushed off the rock with his hands, diving under the water with a flick of his tail. He swam deeper and deeper, hiding in the shadows of the rock that he was just lying on, hoping to god he wasn't spotted.

"Oh, Quiznak!" What was that word? Keith had a rather extensive knowledge of the human language, after all, they never seemed to shut up. It was hard not to learn the language with the constant chatter around him. Was this some kind of swear, some code word to say they've spotted prey? Keith hoped it wasn't the latter.

"What are you yelling about now, Lance?" Someone asked Lance. Walking up behind the annoyed boy

"I -" The Lance kid seemed to be out of words, which within two minutes of meeting this kid seemed almost impossible. "I - I saw something... it was like a tail, but it wasn't a dolphin. It was like a fishtail, but it was massive." Lance stuttered as he tried to describe what he saw to his friends, Keith's blood ran cold, his heart practically stopping as chills went up his spine. He was spotted.

"You're imagining things, just like how you imagine being the strongest member of Voltron," The same cool voiced female said again. From the responding calls and hoots of laughter Keith soon learned her name was Allura.

"I am so the strongest member of Voltron, you're all a bunch of dweebs," Lance snapped, his footsteps started to reside as he walked away from the edge of the cliff.

"You're the one that wanted to call our little friendship group, _'Voltron'_ ," The squeaky-voiced girl named Pidge said as she rummaged through her bag. "So, are we gonna play catch or what?"

"Totally!" The whole group yelled as the sound of laughter quickly echoed from the clifftop, minutes went by and Keith found himself drawn to the group, slowly swimming closer and closer to the surface. At first, he hovered under the surface of the water, still hidden behind the rock. Then, he slowly surfaced, moving closer and closer to the cliff, until his head was poking out of the water and looking directly up at where the group of friends were.

There was a loud commotion happening up there as the Lance boy tried to do a fancy throw to impress the females of the group, leading to him throwing the ball past all of his friends. Everyone scrambled for the ball, but it was too late, it was rolling off the side of the cliff.

"NO!!" Lance screamed as he dove for the ball, skidding along the ground and holding a hand out for the ball, just barely grazing it before it fell towards the water. Lance knelt on his hands and knees on the edge of the cliff, watching as the ball hit the water with a quiet splash, disappearing into the dark water.

Lance was giving up all hope of ever getting his precious ball back, he was about to walk away when he saw the white blur of his ball quickly floating towards the surface, a pale arm quickly appearing to be holding tightly onto it. Lance leant further off the cliff, looking closer to see who the saviour of his ball was. He looked at the water with a smile as the pale arm grew into a pale torso. He saw a head pop out of the water, their dark hair covering their face.

The figure raked their hand through their hair, pushing it away from their face as they studied the ball in confusion, like they had never seen anything like it before. Lance was about to yell down at the stranger and thank them, but when they turned around Lance's mouth fell open in shock.

They looked human at first glance, but the closer he looked, the less human the figure became. The creatures face was spotted with red marks, like freckles - but bigger, and multi-coloured. Poking out from the stranger's black hair were two long fin-like ears, which twitched and flapped as he looked down at Lances ball in confusion.

His eyes trailed down to the stranger's bare shoulders, they were covered in the same spots his face was, only even bigger this time, growing larger and closer as the trailed down his back, like they were forming something. And then, Lance saw it, the swish of a tail under the water. The thing had a freaking tail.

Lance let out a silent scream, nothing seemed to come out as he tried to collect his thoughts. He didn't know what he was looking at, but my god! It was strange. Apparently, Lances terror snapped the thing out of its daze, it locked eyes with Lance, both their eyes widening simultaneously as they stared at each other in shock and fear.

Something about this creature was so beautiful, his eyes, his hair, the certain innocence he held for something as mundane as a ball. It was fascinating and Lance wanted nothing more than to get a closer look.

Leaning forward was a massive mistake, probably the worst he could have ever made. His hands lost their grip on the cliff face, the rock crumbling under his weight. He fell forward, his hands grabbing at the air as he tried to grab onto something that wasn't there. His friends screamed in horror as they watched their friend slip off the cliff. Lance turned in mid-air, trying to grab the cliff, but he was too far, he was forced to watch his friends hopelessly try to grab him as he fell further and further down. He let out a rather feminine shriek as he tried to do anything he could to stop himself from hitting the water. There was nothing he could do.

Keith turned away from the sight in front of him, he could plead ignorance if he just looked away. He swam over to his rock for protection, hiding in its shadow from the group of humans. Keith however, couldn't look away. He stared in abject horror, a loud slap hitting his ears as Lance's back hit the water, knocking the wind out of the poor boy. Lance quickly went limp, he wasn't unconscious, just too sore and disorientated to move.

"LANCE!!" Erupted from the top of the cliff, his friends all huddled around the edge of the cliff, holding each other as they looked desperately for any signs of Lance. They saw nothing but a few depressing bubbles float to the top of the water.

Keith prepared to swim away, holding the ball tightly as a sort of trophy, or more specifically a memory of this bizarre day.

"I - I don't know if he can swim!" One of the boys spat out between sobs, it was clear he was one of the more emotional people of the group. "W-we have to go a-after him!" The boy that was sobbing was, a tad... larger than the others. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, he just gave off the vibe of a teddy bear, being soft and huggable

"Hunk, you know we can't... he's too far down. We just have to hope for a miracle, none of us would be able to save him after enduring a fall like that." Keith could instantly tell the male talking was clearly the voice of reason in that group; the father figure. His hair was completely black except from a prominent strip of white on the top of his head.

Keith tried to swim away, he really did, he wanted nothing to do with humans. He couldn't care less about them, but hearing the muffled cries of the people above him made something stir within him. He thought back to the countless times he wished someone was nearby to help his mother, with whatever happened to her.

He couldn't just leave, especially when he knew the pain of losing someone, he couldn't and wouldn't put that on anyone, even the creatures he hated as much as he did humans. Keith groaned in annoyance, flicking his tail a few times, almost like a toddler kicking the ground as they threw a tantrum.

Keith turned around, diving down into the water to go after the stranger.

 


	3. The Rescue

Deeper and deeper.

Darker and darker.

Keith had dived deeper than this before, sure, but something was different this time. He wasn't diving because he was exploring or looking for something to do. He was saving a human. If someone had said that to Keith at the start of his day, he would have glared at them **hard** before scoffing and swimming away.

Yet here he was, swimming like his life depended on it so he could save a human who he only shared a single glance with.

What was Keith going to do?! Let's say that he does safely rescue the human and the human doesn't try to attack him, would his buddies have called for backup after seeing a mermaid. Were they waiting for him to surface so they could slaughter him? They had definitely seen Keith, so surely they'd be thinking about all the things they could do with his body. That's what humans were like, right?

That's what he's been told forever at least. Humans, bad. Mer-folk, good. "They'll strike when you least expect it, ripping your scales off, one by one." A shiver ran down Keith's spine when he remembered that lady screaming about how bad humans are from on the side of the road one morning. That woman always scared him, more than any human possibly could.

Keith's attention was soon pulled away from the old woman to the young man who entered his field of vision. Lance.

Keith had expected to see lance flailing around in the water, cheeks puffed as he held onto what air he could. He didn't expect to see lance slowly floating down into the abyss, mouth closed tight but seemingly empty. His body was limp but his eyes held anger and terror, lance was fighting to move and stay awake, but he was losing his energy. Fast.

Keith got closer as he watched Lances mouth open, two small bubbles leaving his mouth as it hung open, seemingly the last of his willpower floated away with the bubble as his eyes started drooping, the anger fading away to sadness and emptiness.

Keith swam faster than he ever had, grabbing ahold of lances jacket just as his eyes fully closed, Lance's mouth tipped up into a small, weak smile. He grabbed the limp boy and hoisted Lance's body over his shoulders. Keith zoomed towards the surface, knowing he was swimming against the clock, Lance was on borrowed time.

When Keith hit the surface he dragged Lance towards the shore as fast as he could, resorting to rolling the boys unconscious body towards the shore when the water got too shallow for him to continue swimming. When Lance was safe and away from the dangers of the ocean, Keith let out a sigh of relief he didn't know he was holding. Humans were not only destructive but stupid and clumsy.

Keith pulled himself closer to the shore using his elbows and forearms. He tilted his head slightly as he stared at the boy in amazement, taking in his every feature, he had never been so close to a human.

Keith saw the quiet rise and fall of lances chest as he breathed. At least he was alive. His eyes trailed over the stranger's body, looking at his torso more specifically, they matched.

Keith looked at his stomach, poking it as he looked back up at lance, they looked practically the same aside from the splotches present on Keith's skin. This entire situation was so strange for Keith, he forgot how similar humans looked to mer-folk, the only difference they really had was their bottom halves.

Something about the stranger was enchanting, Keith had to admit, he was beautiful. Well, he was beautiful in a: _I hate your entire species and by extension, you, and I was ready to let you die._ Kind of way. Keith wanted to look at the relaxed and peaceful expression on the stranger forever, learning their every detail, but the sounds of the other humans quickly interrupted his moment of peace.

He started swimming away when a sharp sting shot through his entire body. He looked down the see a smashed glass bottle buried in the sand, one of the spikes now proudly garnishing one of Keith's sparkly red scales as a trophy.

Keith hissed and swam away, not caring about the small amount of blood he was losing or his now missing scale. If the humans caught him, he'd lose a lot more than one scale. While Keith swam away into the depths of the sea, Lance was just starting to stir.

"UughhmMm" Lance groaned as he slowly rolled over, quickly realising his lungs were burning, his eyes sore and watery and his body... soaking wet.

"LANCE!! YOU'RE OKAY!!" The group collectively yelled as the jumped on Lance in a doggy pile, hurting his already bruised back.

"Of course I am... why am I wet?" He asked as he slowly sat up, groaning as his whole body seemed to creak like an old house.

"You fell off a cliff man, we thought you drowned. But... here you are." Pidge gave Lance a supportive smile as she placed a hand on his back. Lance pretended he didn't just flinch in pain and smiled at the girl, it was the thought that counts anyway. He quickly noticed the redness in everyone's eyes and under their noses, they were crying, weren't they?

"It's a miracle you're here." Hunk pulled Lance into a bone-crushing hug, not wanting to let him go.

Shiro and Allura both looked down at the sand, noticing the two clear tracks that were made, one leading to where Lance was lying, clearly he was pushed there when he was unconscious due to the sand that had been pushed out of the way by force. The other one, however, was odd. Shiro was looking for footprints, whoever made the second track would have had to walk away somehow. There would have been a singular footprint in the mud if they had gone back into the ocean. Yet nothing.

It was like they dragged themselves onto the beach with Lance, and then disappeared. "You know." Lance brought a hand to his mouth and pretended to cough. "I still feel really bad." He coughed again. "Allura, I need CPR," Lance said with a smug grin and he puckered his lips.

"That's not how CPR works, your mouth would be held open while she breathed in your mouth, it's not like kissing." Pidge smacked Lance on the upside of the head as she decided to take it upon herself to explain how wrong he was.

"So, our mouths would be open... like a French kiss?" Allura took the liberty of smacking Lance this time.

"I feel sorry for anyone you've ever dated, you must be a horrible kisser." Allura sighed, giggling slightly as she struggled to hide her amusement.

"I am not! Come over here and I'll prove it!" Lance whined again as he reached out for Allura, a smirk firmly planted on his face. Shiro then decided to smack him on the head as well, quickly shutting the boy up.

Suddenly there was a splashing in the water, not too far from the group of friends. They all looked over the water to see the sun setting, the light of the sun reflected off something just under the surface of the water, making something red shimmer before it moved out of the sun. Pidge looked down at the sand, trying to work out what she had seen, then something caught her eye.

She reached down into the shallow water and pulled a shattered green bottle out the sand, she eyed it suspiciously, she pulled off a single scale and held it up to the light, noticing how it shone in the light the same way that thing in the water did. Pidge could tell it came from something living, evident by the blood that was in the sand around the bottle. "Lance, take this." Pidge smiled as she pressed the scale into the boy's hand.

"Why would I want a... - what is this?" Lance started before he cut himself off, openly pondering the item in his hand.

"It's a fish scale, I haven't seen anything like it before. It was right next to where you washed up, so it must be good luck," The small girl smiled before she decided she couldn't let Lance get away from this situation without a little bit of mocking. "Maybe it will help you not fall off a cliff again."

"Or teach him how to actually throw a ball," Allura quickly added.

"Hey! I almost died! I demand a little respect!" Lance argued, but was met with nothing but more mockery and laughter. He couldn't help but look down at the scale in his hand, intrigued by its beauty. Lance knew he had some serious research that he needed to do when he got home.


	4. Snorkelling gear

Lance was ready to throw himself out of the nearest window. If his apartment wasn't one story, and his windows weren't barred he would have jumped hours ago. He had taped the scale to the corner of his computer screen, so he could easily see it for reference.

Yet, nothing. He searched for hours upon hours, checking every website he could find. He even resorted to checking the second page of Google, he hopped from website to website, yet he had nothing to show for it. He spent so long searching on fishing websites, he was positive he'd be receiving ads for fishing poles for the rest of his life.

The closest he ever came to finding the elusive redfish was a species called "Sebastes marinus" but that was found around the artic... not near the coastlines. Not to mention it was about the size of your thumb, so it wasn't big enough to be the owner of the scales.

He was beyond bored with researching fish breeds all day, he'd prefer to be sitting in silence, doing anything rather staring at fish all day... or, at least staring at them on a screen. An idea popped into his head as he glanced over to his left. A pair of snorkels hung from a hook on his door, a thick layer of dust covering the once crystal clear glasses. Just underneath them hung a blue pair of flippers, matching his snorkel.

It was a gift from his family when he lived with them, he'd go snorkelling almost every day. He practically lived in the ocean, watching fish go by and playing with his siblings. When he left home he'd go out to the water every day, then every other day, then every week... and then never. It just wasn't the same when he was alone, it was still fun and he still loved the water, but being on the beach alone just made him homesick.

He'd go to the beach with 'team Voltron' every so often, it was one of the few places they went to: Beach, movies, each other's houses and the park. He usually never went by himself, but maybe he could make an exception. He sighed deeply and pushed himself up off his chair, walking over to his closet and grabbing a pair of blue board shorts.

If he found the fish scale at the beach, surely the best place to check for that fish is the beach, not his computer. He slipped on the shorts and grabbed his snorkelling gear, coughing slightly as he blew the dust off them.

When Lance arrived at the beach he stood on the sand, staring up at the cliff he had fallen off yesterday. At the end you could still clearly see the missing rock that had fallen away, the occasional pebble was dislodged by the wind and fell down to the water with a barely noticeable splash. Lance couldn't remember what happened that day fully, his memory was fragmented, probably from all that time he was underwater.

The only things that he could remember were a ball rolling away, a pair of beautiful eyes, searing pain in his lungs and head, and then waking up on the beach. He didn't even know he had fallen off a cliff until his friends told him, his mind was blank. Everything else that happened was just fuzzy, he couldn't really remember. All of those things were like weak memories, ones that you can barely remember and when you think about them they're blurry. The memories that are so short that the same thing keeps replaying in your head like a broken record as you try to tell what happened next.

The weirdest thing is he remembers seeing something above him with a tail, him smiling when he realised it was probably that dolphin he was so excited to see. _'I remember closing my eyes, and just before everything went blank feeling a hand grabbing my jacket'_ he thought to himself as he replayed that memory over and over.

It made no sense, but nothing about that day really did. What was he going to tell his mother when she called for her usual weekly calls. "Oh hey, yeah I fell off a cliff and I'm pretty sure my oxygen deprived brain started hallucinating dolphins with arms. So, how's uncle Terry?" Like, no. She'd personally drive over and beat some sense into him before locking him in a mental institution.

He dunked his goggles into the water to wash off the rest of the dirt before putting them on, he snapped the snorkel into place. He waded out into the water, flippers in hand. He quickly slipped on his fins and duck dived underwater, looking for a sign of red.

Lance was one hell of a strong swimmer, mainly because he spent years swimming with his family, his mother always mocked him, by saying he could swim before he could walk. Just the thought of that brought a smile to his face as he slowly paddled further and further out.

He saw pretty much every type of fish you could think of, yet there was no sign of any redfish with sparkly scales. Maybe he'd have to go deeper? It's possible that the scale just drifted to shore and that kind of fish doesn't go remotely close to the shore. It was crazy, but Lance was desperate.

Honestly, why does he even care so much about a stupid fish? It's not like there aren't millions of them in the ocean, there's even a whole catchphrase about how many there are. The chances that the fish is in the same area as yesterday is so small, not to mention that it would swim away before Lance could even see it. So why was he so determined to see something that he could just go see at an aquarium if he was _that_ desperate.

It was rather ridiculous really, Lance was paddling around looking for a fish (that he wasn't really sure even existed) by himself after spending hours just scrolling through fishing websites. _'How did I get to this point'_ he thought as he idly paddled, scanning the seafloor for the fish he was looking for.

Lance didn't know it yet, but the thing- well person, he was looking for was a mere few metres away, peering from behind a rock, terrified out of his mind.


	5. Seaweed Bag

Keith couldn't believe he got himself into the situation. He should have stayed home... he was going to stay home actually. He hated that house and really didn't want to spend any time in it, but after what happened on the surface, the cold, empty walls suddenly felt very inviting.

Of course, the universe just loves messing with him. Today just HAD to be the day that his father decided to try and cook dinner (like he used to when his mother was around), and he needed some clams from the rocks near the surface. Keith was huffing and puffing the entire way to the surface, he couldn't believe the one day he wanted to stay home, was the day his father actually wanted him out of the house.

Keith had a small bag that was weaved out of seaweed slung over his shoulder, it was decorated with shells and starfish, but he really didn't care about that. It was a bag, and that's all he really needed it to be. Keith quickly started pulling clams away from the rock, breaking them off before tossing them down into his bag, being careful not to cut himself. One clam, in particular, didn't want to cooperate, Keith pulled and pulled, but nothing. Keith pulled with all of his force, he was so caught up in swishing his tail so he could get all of the power he can, that he didn't hear the splash of Lance diving under the water.

Eventually, the clam broke off, sending Keith flying backwards, Keith turned upside down in the water as he was launched back. He opened his eyes to see everything was upside down, the rocks, the surface, the sand, that cute human from yesterday. _'You have got to be kidding me'_

Keith was so many levels of done, whoever - or whatever - fate was, was having a good old laugh at Keith's expense. He peered out at the human, his bag swishing around as he moved, the shells clinking together as they bounced off each other. His eyes trailed over the human's body, his legs were the same as yesterday, still... well... legs.

His heart picked up, his entire body screaming at him to leave, get as far away as he could. Humans are apex predators, they're at the top of the food chain and do whatever the hell they want, he should be scared. More scared than he his. Something about the human's crystal blue eyes reminded him of the ocean, calming him down. The ocean was safe, the ocean was familiar.

Keith considered swimming away, just ditching the clams and swimming as fast as he possibly could. It was a rather intriguing idea, but if he went home empty-handed, his father would send him back. He's reasonably well hidden... if he just stays quiet and leaves as soon as he possibly can, he should be okay. He continued to pluck clams off of the rock, he didn't know how many his dad actually needed, but if he got a lot, he wouldn't have to come back up to the surface for a while.

Keith hadn't even noticed a small part of his tail was visible from behind the rock, he was too preoccupied with finding the best-looking clams. He didn't even know that Lance had spotted him until he felt a strong hand wrap around the base of his tail, just above his fin. "Found it!" Lance exclaimed happily as he pulled at the fishes tail, he was expecting to see (a rather startled) redfish, one scale missing from somewhere on its body. Not a terrified boy.

Lances eyes trailed up from the tail his hand was gripping, across the patches of red where the boys tail started to taper off into his torso, and eventually his face. "What the fuuucccckkkk," Lance quietly whispered to himself in shock as he looked at the creature's waist, where tail met stomach. There was no way this was a little kid wearing one of those mermaid tail suits, it would have easily slipped off when Lance pulled at his tail.

Lances brain was short-circuiting, he looked up at the creatures terrified eyes and instantly recognised them as that pair of eyes he keeps seeing when he thinks of what happened yesterday. Was this thing somehow responsible for him falling off the cliff? He was pulled out of this thoughts as the creature started thrashing in his arms, trying to get away from his iron grip on his tail.

"LET ME GO YOU HUMAN!!" Keith was throwing that word around like it was some kind of insult, hoping that it would shock the creature into losing its grip. But, nothing. Keiths bag slipped off his shoulder, drifting down to the seafloor below them. A small puff of sand drifting up as it hit the bottom. 

Keith kept screaming, hoping there would be a nearby mermaid to hear him, but, nothing. News about the human that fell off the cliff spread like wildfire yesterday, people were too scared to go to the surface, in fear of more humans being there to get revenge.

Lance awkwardly paddled to the surface, Keith reluctantly in tow. Lance ripped the mask off his face and took a deep breath of fresh air. "I won't hurt you, you just need to calm down," Lance spoke in as calm and friendly voice as he could muster. Lance was always good at acting calmly in dire situations. In this case, trying to calm down a screaming mermaid that he had by the tail.

"I don't want to talk to you!" Keith hissed. No, like he actually hissed, like a cat. His ears fanned out on the sides of his head, flapping wildly as he tried to look as threatening as possible. The spots on his face were starting to change colour, it wasn't a massive change, just from his usual rose red, to a dark blood red.

Keith's tail felt almost soft in Lance's hand, it wasn't slimy like you'd expect, or tough from the scales, it was just soft and squishy. It actually reminded him of a snake. Lance quickly noticed that there was a long cut on the side of his tail, one small-scale missing in the middle of the cut. He was who Lance was looking for.

Keith quickly began to tire, his snaps being more erratic and less powerful. He was losing his energy fast. "Just-." Keith paused, taking a deep breath to stop his voice from quivering. "-Let me go, I won't tell anyone."

"Just calm down, okay," Lance said as he placed his hand on Keith's cheek, trying to calm him down. He wasn't even really thinking, just acting on instinct. Keith tensed up when he felt the warmth of the stranger's hand on his face, he wasn't sure what was happening. Keith felt himself slowly calming down before he realised something, _'this is what the human wants, this is a battle tactic. He'll lull me into a false sense of security and then strike'_

Keith decided he'd have to act first so he didn't end up as dinner, he wasn't going to die anytime soon, especially at the hands of some human. He hissed loudly and felt his ears flatten against his head, he was warning the human to back away.

Lance flinched, but didn't move, is it weird that Keith kind of wanted to snuggle closer, wanting to feel the heat the human-provided? Keith hated that he liked this, surely the human had him under some kind of spell.

Keith grabbed the humans hand, pulling it away from his face and digging in with his razor sharp nails. The pain was enough for Lance to let go in shock, grabbing his lightly bleeding wrist. With a loud hiss, Keith swam away with a strong flick of his tail.

Lance paddled in place, not being able to understand what just happened. Who - or what - was that thing. Whatever it was, Lance felt drawn towards it, his heart picking up in speed as he thought of the purplish-black eyes that he stared into.

 

 


	6. Three Minutes

Three minutes, that's all Lance needs to last. 

He anxiously bounces his leg as he sits on his swivel stool, tapping his foot with every tick of the clock he was glaring at. The radio blasting in the background was white noise, something his brain was just naturally tuning out as he focused on the quiet ticking of the clock.

_Two minutes._

He scans the counter in front of him, triple checking that everything was clean and organised. The second that clock strikes four, he is out that damn door. He idly straightens up the stack of CDs in front of him, worrying that he'd have to stay back a few more minutes.

_One minute._

He watches as customers quietly flip through the records and CDs in the cases that filled the shop, occasionally picking one up to look it over. He loved his job, really, he did. But damn, he's pretty sure he's never wanted to run out the door more than he has today.

_Thirty seconds._

He stands up from his seat, grabbing his backpack and slinging it over his shoulder. Lance speed walked into the back room where his boss was looking over some tax forms.

"I'm out for the day! Bye, Coran!" Lance yelled a jumbled excuse and rushed out the door. Quickly stopping at the door and turning around. "Don't miss me too much, Allura." Lance shot his co-worker a quick wink and finger guns, before spinning around and taking off down the street.

"He's in a rush," Allura muttered under her breath as she went back to sorting out a pile of CDs she had in her hands.

Lance sprinted down the street, skidding around corners as he yelled apologies to the people that he bumped into, not slowing down. He had both of his hands tightly gripping the backpack straps on his shoulders, he honestly felt like a cliché anime girl who's late for class. All he needs is a slice of toast shoved in his mouth and he's all set.

He was getting some weird looks from the people he passed, you usually didn't see many people running down the street at this time of the day, it's not really rush hour. He could smell the salt in the air as he got closer the beach, the sounds of honking cars quickly being replaced with the splashing of waves and families looking to cool down.

When he finally reaches his usual secluded spot just under the cliff he had... not so fond memories of, he breathed a sigh of relief. Finally catching his breath from his long run. He pulled out a small towel from his bag, placing it on the sand and smoothing it out before flopping down with a quiet 'oompf'.

"Hey, I'm back again." He honestly felt crazy doing his, sitting in the middle of nowhere talking to the ocean, pretending like something - or more specifically someone - was listening. "You probably missed me, huh?"

Silence.

"I'll take that as a yes. Anyway!" Lance clapped rubbing his hands together as he dove into his bag. "I wasn't sure what to get you, I was thinking sushi but you probably have that a lot; I mean I doubt you have rice, but like seaweed and fish would be pretty common - unless you have that kind of fish are friends, not food mentality... which is cool by the way! I don't judge." Ah man, he was rambling, wasn't he? Lance couldn't help himself, he just seemed to spill his guts whenever he was seemingly talking to himself, even though he was hoping a particular fish was listening.

"So, I bought some fruit! I don't know what you guys are allergic to, so I thought something natural would be safe. You seemed to like that bread from yesterday anyway; I mean I didn't see you eat it, but it was gone when I turned around!" Speaking of which, Lance placed the pineapple, apples, pears and grapes on a little raft, gently pushing it into the ocean.

He shifted on the sand, covering his eyes with his hands. He quickly learnt the Mermaid would only do something when he wasn't looking, he sat there for a good half an hour last time waiting for something to happen until he saw a dog and got distracted, only to find the bread was gone.

He heard a quiet splash as he assumed the mermaid poked his head above the water, some more splashes as he presumably took the ' _offering'_. He hears one final splash and silence for a few seconds, only the waves going in and out. He slowly takes his hands off his face, his eyes still tightly shut to give his new friend warning before he opens them. Are they even friends? Lance would like to think so... but I mean he's not even completely sure of the other person's existence.

When he opened his eyes the raft is back at his feet, food gone. Lance smiles and stashes back in a little nook in the cliff, just big enough to hide it. "So, all of those grow on trees.. .well, not the pineapple - and well, the grapes grow on vines - but still! It's cool." His eyes widened as he realised that the mermaid may not know what trees are.

"Trees are those big things that grow out of the ground, they're green and let us breathe! Birds make their homes in them and they're fun to climb." Lance always treated these little moments like lessons, teaching his friend about the human world, even though he's not certain that he sticks around after he gets the food.

It goes deathly silent and Lance thinks of what to say next.

"So... I've been coming here a week now. It's not that I'm not grateful to have this time... but I'd love to hear something from you! It doesn't need to be words - like a flick of your tail would do!" Nothing but a few bubbles surface, the core of the apple slowly bobs at the surface, sharp teeth marks present in its soft flesh.

Lance wondered to himself, was he even safe here? He's safe of the shore, sure, but what if he went into the water? Would it try and attack him, was the fruit only an appetizer and he was the main course?

He hasn't actually seen the mermaid since their run in last week, he didn't mean to startle the poor thing. Lance really should have taken a course of action other than grabbing his tail and dragging him around. Lance looked down at his wrist, the small red marks the mermaid made last week were still present. It wasn't the mermaids fault, he was just trying to get away and Lance was just in the way, he dug his claws in because he had to.

Suddenly, a head popped out of the water, too far away so Lance couldn't quite see the individual spots on its face, just a sea of red, but close enough to see those purple eyes he was so drawn to in the first place. The creature kept most of its head underwater, only his eyes and top half of his head sticking out.

"Wow..." Lance gasped as he looked at the creature, he couldn't see most of him, but what you could see was causing him to have quite the crisis. He hadn't really noticed before while the creature was thrashing around, but he had what looked to be a mullet? Really?

It wasn't quite a mullet, but it was damn close to one. As stupid as it seemed, it actually kind of suited the creature, they probably don't have hairdressers underwater, so it most likely just grew that way.

The mermaid seemed more open to Lance as it slowly paddled closer, his head still mostly underwater as he watched Lance, ready to swim away if necessary. Lance crawled towards the water on his hands and knees, tilting his head as he looked at the coolest yet weirdest thing he'd seen in his life.

Before they knew it there were mere centimeters apart, Keith pushed himself out of the water on his hands, revealing the rest of his face, torso and the slightest bit of his tail. Their faces were level and mere centimeters apart, their eyes meeting as their mind seemed to go blank. Their lips parted in slight shock, their breaths meddling in a white cloud in front of them. Water droplets slowly slipped down the mermaids face, trailing down his neck and torso, eventually dripping down into the water. " _Eres Hermosa_..." Lance mumbled under his breath. **_You're Beautiful_**

Lance was on his knees, leaning forward as the tiniest smile appeared on his shocked face, while Keith kept his sceptic frown, his expression never changing. "Weird." Was all Keith said as he reached out and flicked Lance's ear.

Okay, so... that's rude. What was wrong with his ears, it's not like they're big or anything; technically they're weird compared to the mermaids ears, but HE'S THE WEIRD ONE!! NOT LANCE

"I'm Lance, but you can call me... tomorrow," He said with a wink, holding out his hand as a sign of friendship.

"Tomorrow?" Keiths eyebrows furrowed, that was 100% the weirdest name Keith had ever heard, humans are so weird. "Keith." He said and awkwardly gripped the human's hand, poking their fingers together. 'I guess handshakes aren't universal' Lance thought to himself.

"Ah no, I mean it's just Lance," Lance said again, trying to reintroduce himself.

"Just Lance?" Keith just looked more confused, a frustrated look appearing on his face as he tried to work out what the human was saying. Keith's eyebrows were knitted together in frustration, a small pout present on his lips as he tapped his chin, thinking. Lance's heart almost stopped, his face quickly heating up, the innocent look on the creatures face was almost too much.


	7. ... Not here?

It doesn't take long for Keith to adjust to this new addition to his life, he'd always prided himself on being able to adapt to new situations quickly, never really putting too much thought into where his life was taking him.

However, he still had walls up (far too many if we're being honest), just because he's accepted the human as apart of his life, doesn't mean he's going to get past the walls Keith so carefully put up.

Keith isn't clingy and he doesn't need affection, he's grown to be a 'lone wolf' of sorts. However, this Lance person was a different case entirely. He was fascinated with everything to do with Keith, never seeming to lose interest. He was clingy -that's for sure- yet somehow it was oddly endearing.

The Cuban boy's aura was intoxicating, how he could just smile and accept anything that came his way, his lips never seeming to tip into a frown. He never once questioned anything about Keith's life (other than his hairstyle for some reason), just accepting how he was.

"So, Pidge is screaming, Hunk has disappeared and Shiro looks like he wants to die; and that's why we don't play monopoly anymore," Lance smiled widely, finishing off his story as he looked down at Keith happily. He was sitting on a small rock with his legs crossed, arms resting on his legs, as Keith leant on the rock with his arms, tail still in the water.

"Who is this Pidge again?" Keith asked, he was still getting used to this group of friends Lance was so passionate about.

"She's a small four-eyed green demon." These people seemed odd, but amazing in their own way. "Allura is so great too... She's the one that's in love with me," Lance said with a smirk, looking down at the mermaid with a dazed grin.

"Your girlfriend?" Keith asked, it was a rather innocent question especially based on how Lance had been describing her so far. Keith, however, did not expect the boy to nearly fall off the rock as he had a heart attack.

"WHA- NOO! WHAT?! NO, NO!! NOTHING LIKE THAT!" He quickly explained, kneeling in front of Keith and frantically waving his arms. "She's like my sister, I say we love each other as a joke..." Lance said with puffed cheeks, looking away in annoyance.

"Why would you try to date your sister?" Keith's nose scrunched and face puckered like he had just taken a massive bite out of a lemon. Maybe this was a normal thing for humans, but relationships like that were frowned upon in mermaid society, not to mention it's just gross.

"Ugh, it doesn't matter anyway, they'll be here soon and you'll understand when you meet them," Lance sighed, placing a supportive hand on the mermaids shoulder.

"I- uh, I don't know..." Keith sighed, he really wasn't sure if he was ready for this. Exposing himself to one human was risky enough, but a whole group of them? That's practically suicide. He might as well try and fly himself into an alien force field. (A/N hahaha.... too soon).

"Hey, I promise they're good people!" Lance smiled, his smile always seemed to calm Keith down, why? He'll never really know.

Speaking of which. "LANCE?! Where are you, bro!?" Someone called out in the distance, sending shocks of fear running through Keith's body. Lance let go of him for a moment, so he could stand up and walk over to his friends.

"I'M OVER HERE!!" He yelled in response.

"REAL HELPFUL! WHERE THE HELL IS 'HERE'?!" Lance eventually spotted the group, frantically waving his arms when they finally spotted him.

"Dude, we're here... why did you want us to come here so late?" Hunk sighed, quickly hugging his friend before resting his hands on his hips.

"Oh, right, Keith doesn't like to be above the water most of the day, too many people you know?" Lance explained greeting the rest of the group while he was talking.

"Who the hell is Keith?" Pidge asked, raising an eyebrow. "You don't have many friends and I know all of them, not to mention they're all standing right here."

Firstly, ow, his pride.

Secondly, he totally has friends! There was Nyma, I mean she was technically using him because she wanted help with her exam... shoot maybe Lance needs to get out more.

"Hey! Keith is very real! He's just shy, okay?!" Honestly, to this day no one is really sure if Lance was defending himself or Keith.

"Fine, where his Keith, I'd like to meet the guy who's been pulling you out of work almost every day," Allura sighed, looking Lance up and down. "I've had to close up shop all by myself, with the exception of Coran, of course." Coran simply smiled and twisted his moustache in acknowledgement.

"Right, so he's right over... not here?" Lance slowly walked around the corner of the cliff, leading his friends there only to see an empty spot where Keith once was.

"Soooooooo, where is he?" Pidge asked again, seemingly fed up with this whole situation, tonight was movie night and she and Matt had a good line up planned.

"He was here a second ago! He's probably just underwater, his fins get dry if his head is out of the water too long," Lance gushed, rushing over to the water and looking down, seeing nothing but a few shells.

"I told you he had a concussion!" Pidge yelled in triumph, punching hunks arm.

"Maybe you should go lie down, you've had a long few weeks buddy," Shiro smiled as he slowly approached Lance, almost like if he walked to fast he'd spook Lance like a deer.

"I'm not crazy! I know how it sounds, but he's real!" Lance stomped his foot on the ground, huffing as he spun back around to the water.

"Lance, mermaids don't exist okay... I wish they did, but they don't," Hunk added, even he wasn't on Lances side on this, he truly was outnumbered.

They all stopped in their tracks when Keith jumped out of the water, panting as he pushed his hair away from his face, not looking up to see the shocked group. "Sorry Lance, I had to tell Rebecca to leave me alone... that girl just can't catch a hint!" He rubbed his eyes and sighed. "Anyway, when were your friends arriving again?"

Keith finally looked up to see a rather large group of humans staring at him with open mouths, other than Lance who had a cocky, shit eating grin plastered on his face.

"I TOLD YOU HE WAS REAL!!" Lance jumped in the air running over to Keith to give him a high five. Keith - who was still getting used to human traditions like high fives - got confused and accidentally gave him a fist bump. "You know what? I'll take it, it's progress."

"Holy Mother of Lions," Allura muttered, everyone, looked at each other to check that they were all seeing the same thing.

"Maybe we all have a concussion?" Hunk questioned out loud.

"Maybe we're all just REALLY high right now," Pidge added on. She pulled off her glasses and clean them, just to make sure this wasn't a really weird smudge. It wasn't.

"Come on guys! He's real!" Lance was exasperated, throwing his arms around frantically as he gestured at the mermaid who was looking rather confused about this whole situation. "Keith do the thing!" Lance ordered.

"I'm not an Animal you can order around!" Keith snapped, flicking his tail and splashing Lance with a large amount of water.

"I'll show you more photos of hippos..." Keith's head picked up in interest, his eyes sparkling a small amount as he looked up at Lance.

"Fiinnnneeeeeee." Keith dove underwater, disappearing for a few seconds before he shot out of the water, flipping twice through the air before diving back down, his tail shining in the sun as he did so.

"See! He's real!" Lance said again, trying to prove to his friends that they weren't all crazy.

"Well, this is an interesting discovery..." Allura was the first to speak up, flattening out her dress and taking a few long strides towards the slightly out of breath mermaid that was sitting on the rock, his tail almost fully out of the water. "I am Allura, it is nice to meet you." She held out her hand and Keith looked at Lance for assistance.

Lance grasped his own hand, shaking it to remind Keith of what to do, which surprisingly worked as Keith slowly grabbed the girls hand and shook it a few times. "Keith, remember, you let go after a few shakes..." Lance laughed as Allura started trying to pull away from the boys iron grip. Keith quickly apologised and retracted his hand, his posture quickly becoming smaller in his embarrassment.


	8. Blushes

Keith was having quite the crisis, to put it lightly.

A few hundred years ago, the Mermaid population was dwindling, and fast. Humans had hunted them to near extinction, so they removed themselves from that world. Eventually, humans forgot about their existence altogether, the idea of a Mermaid just becoming something of folk law, a figurative black spot in human history.

However, mermaids were still left with a shockingly low population... and no solutions. At first, mermaids searched the globe, hoping to find other booming cities like they had long ago, but they only found small villages in the same situation as them. The population was just over two million, out of the previous half a billion they once had.

So, a new era of mermaid society was born, one where reproduction and growth were valued above all else, the population was slowly starting to rise and everything was starting to look up. However, this is where Keith's crisis comes into play. See, male-female relationships were prioritized above all others, not out of homophobia, but out of pure efficiency.

No one in mermaid society really had a problem with same-sex relationships, but they weren't really viewed positively either, in mermaid society the goal was reproduction, and same-sex couples just couldn't really do that. Like... at all. Now, do you see where Keith's problem lies?

Even as children they're taught about these beautiful things called relationships, where a nice merman meets a nice mermaid and they live happily ever after. But... Keith could never see himself living 'Happily ever after' with a mermaid.

The biggest thing you can do to bring your family pride is have offspring, it's the highest of honours, and Keith was starting to doubt more and more if he'd even do that. Believe him, he'd tried to like mermaids, he REALLY had, but there wasn't really that spark... you know?

Now, here's where things get even more complicated for our little-fined boy, when he first saw Lance; after he had saved him from death itself. Something in his heart just exploded, when he went home and thought about said feeling, something just clicked in his head. Not only was Keith attracted to guys, oh no, he was attracted to a human. He wasn't in love, and you couldn't even really call it a crush yet, but lord was the human objectively attractive.

Yep, Keith was officially pinning after a human male... how had his life come to this point? The worst part of all of this? People were starting to get suspicious. Keith was already viewed as weird, but he was leaving every single day and the exact same time, only to return with human objects. Something was smelling fishy and this time it wasn't last nights dinner.

"Hey, Hunk?" Keith and Hunk had actually grown rather close over the past few weeks, Hunk was just really accepting and supportive about Keith and his dilemmas.

"Yeah?" He smiled, looking down at the troubled mermaid.

"Why do you like-" There was a pregnant pause and Keith tried to think of a way to express what he was feeling. "-girls?" Okay, so that wasn't quite as eloquent as Keith was hoping it would sound, but it'll do.

"Oh, buddy." Hunk already knew where this was going, based on his longing looks towards a particular boy to just his overall expression. He wouldn't say anything though, even if it was obvious. "They're just pretty I guess," Hunk said, knowing this conversation was pointless.

"Yeah, I get that... but like WHY are they pretty?!" Keith threw his arms up in annoyance, huffing as his ears started twitching.

"I dunno dude, they just are." Hunk paused to think. "Well, let's use Allura as an example here-" He gestured over to the girl who was lounging on the sand, eyes closed as she presumably -napped. "-Now, neither of us like her, but I'm sure we can both say that she's objectively attractive right?" Keith nodded. "Well, why is that?" Hunk said, pushing Keith to come to the conclusion on his own.

"I - Uh... Okay, I see where you're coming from." There wasn't one thing in particular that Keith could pinpoint as _the_ thing that made her attractive, it was kind of a combination of everything. However, when Keith looked over at Lance, he could pinpoint exactly what it was.

Lance laughed as he cannonballed into the water, waving at Keith when he popped out of the water, a small strand of seaweed hanging from his head, covering part of his face. It was his eyes, well that and next to everything else about him, but his eyes most of all. Lance saw Keith staring and shot him some finger guns, smirking before diving back into the water and disappearing from sight. Keith's face quickly started to match the colour of his spots, going a light red colour. Was he sick?

Hunk noticed Keith's apparent discomfort as he brought a hand to his face, rubbing as if he expected the red to go away. "You're blushing dude, it isn't paint..." Hunk laughed as he watched him rub harder, only pulling his hands away to check if anything had come off. Keith looked at his reflection quizzically, not understanding what was happening. "It's what happens when you feel embarrassed, or in loooovvveeee," Hunk mocked, drawing out the syllables as he clasped his hands together and made kissy faces.

"I've never experienced this before, it's... odd. I feel warm and tingly," Keith sighed, looking at his reflection in the water, his hair draped over his face, not quite covering the redness of his cheeks. "Is this normal for humans?" Keith asked, looking away from the water for a moment.

"Very. People do it all the time, the paler you are, the more it shows; so that explains why you look like a literal tomato." Keith glared at Hunk before diving into the water, hoping to cool down his constantly heating up face. Sure, people call him a hot head; but this is ridiculous. Keith floated to the surface, his mouth underwater as he blew bubbles, stewing in his anger.

"Stupid Lance and his stupid magic witch powers," Keith grumbled, relief slowly flooding his body as he felt his face slowly cool off. "Hunk, it's going away, is that normal?" Keith asked as he slowly started to climb back out of the water.

"Yeah, it goes away as you calm down," Hunk explained, patting the sand next to him. "Do mermaids really not blush?" Hunk asked.

"I mean, I assume it's because we're always underwater, it's probably because I've been above so long-" Keith was pulled out of his conversation as Lance slowly stood up, walking out of the water. ' _Oh noooooooooooooo.'_

Lance ran his hand through his hair, pushing his wet locks out of the way. Drops of water slowly trailing down his body, cascading down his chest. Is it possible to be jealous of water? His muscles tightening and flexing as he walks up onto the beach, stretching as he gets used to being out of the water again. Keith let out a sound between a sob and a wheeze, clutching his chest as his heart beat wildly.

"You look like you're having an aneurysm, you okay, Keith?" During is attack, Keith hadn't noticed Lance walking up towards the pair, until he was crouched down in front of him, pressing a hand to his forehead. The occasional water drop slipped down from Lance's hair, only adding to the freak out Keith was having. ' _I am this close to screaming. I am going to start screaming_.' Keith thought to himself in his panic.

It should be illegal to be that perfect. One day, he's going to kick fates ass, because whoever it is, they're having a real good laugh at Keith's life right now. If he wasn't red before, he sure as hell is now.


	9. Possible Consequences

_All the single ladies!_

_All the single ladies!_

_All the single ladies!_

_Put your hands up!_

Keith furrowed his eyebrows as he listened to the sounds again, he bit his lip as he tried to work out what these words represented. "This is created by a goddess?" Keith asked again, pointing at the phone that the music was streaming from.

"Yes, Queen Beyoncé," Lance explained, lip-syncing along with the song... because of course, he was.

"Is this some kind of ritual? Why are people asked to put their hands up? Who are these single ladies?" Keith was firing out questions faster than Lance could even process them. "Why do these sounds make me want to move?" Keith said again, huffing in annoyance as he felt his tail start to unconsciously sway.

"It's called Music, it's good, yeah?" Lance smiled, shuffling through his playlist, he was determined to get Keith singing ABBA by the end of the week. He couldn't help but wonder what mermaids would sound like singing, could they even sing?

"Music... I think mermaids had something like that once," Keith pondered, thinking back to the history lesson he napped in a few weeks ago. He really should pay attention more.

"Had?" Lance prodded.

"Yes, had. We lost our culture when we were drove to extinction... too many bad memories to try and bring it back," Keith said with a shrug, not really thinking too much about the massacre that happened a few hundred years ago. It was in the past.

"Jeez, one more tragic backstory and you'll be shopping at hot topic." Lance noticed the roll of Keith's eyes at the pop culture reference that (for understandable reasons) he didn't understand. "Sorry, I forget you don't understand human culture."

"It's not that I don't understand, I just don't know," Keith snapped back, his ears flaring.

"You and I both know that your brain is small because your mullet is taking up all that space." Lance had a snide smirk on his face as he took a strand of Keith's hair and twirled it around his finger, mocking the poor boy.

"At least I didn't fall off a cliff trying to impress a girl," Keith retorted, smiling proudly to himself.

"At least I wasn't forced to save said huma- I just roasted myself didn't I?"

"Yeah, yeah you did," He said with a small nod, trying to ignore the smile that was creeping up on his lips. "Hey, so when do you have to go home?" Keith asked, quietly hoping that the answer would be never.

"Soon actually, it's movie night, so Hunk's going to be there early," Lance checked his watch. To anyone who wasn't an oblivious mess of a person, they'd see the small frown on Lances face at the mere mention of leaving, or the blush on his cheeks whenever Keith laughed. However, we aren't dealing with someone like that, we're dealing with Keith, and he saw absolutely none of it.

"Right, he's gonna be cooking..." Keith trailed off, looking down at his tail and slowly rubbing over the scales, it was a nervous twitch of his; his mother did that whenever he was scared as a child. "I should uh... probably go then, let you get home and all that." The air was heavy and awkward. Both boys really didn't want to go, but felt like the other wanted to.

"Yeah... Pidge will get mad if I'm late again.." A small laugh slipped past Keith's lips, at the thought of Pidge blackmailing Lance again, that girl was an evil genius. Keith felt the urge to pull the human closer, wrap his arms around the boy's torso and never let go; however, the urge passed as soon as it came. Lance had already stood up and was dusting the sand off his pants, slowly walking backwards. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Sure." And with that Lance walked away, hands shoved in his jacket pockets. Keith heard the quiet beep of his unlocking his car in the distance, the sound of the engine slowly fading away as he drove home. Leaving Keith alone once again.

"Well now, isn't this sweet?" Keith jumped out of his skin, letting out a shrill scream and almost jumping onto the rock next to him. He exhaled and gripped his chest, trying to calm his heart down. He recognized the purple skin and sharp, knife-like tail instantly.

"Lotor..." Keith seethed, clenching his teeth together. He was a siren, prince of the royal family known as the 'Galra'. They ruled with an iron fist, only a few towns over, their power was quickly spreading as more and more mermaids turned to sirens as leaders. Sirens could manipulate almost anyone they wanted, making them natural born leaders, that's the main reason that they ruled the sea.

Mermaids and Sirens were closely related, relationships between the two were actually more common than you'd think. His mother was a siren actually, making Keith a half-breed, he'd die before he admitted it to anyone though. Only Keith's immediate family and the royal family knew. That's actually why Keith bit Lance all those weeks ago, his siren instincts kicked in.

"What do you want?" Keith spat, slowly starting to swim away from the shore, talking to Lotor as they swam together.

"Can't I talk to a fellow half-breed?" Lotor asked innocently, acting like it was a normal thing.

"You don't talk, you negotiate, so I ask again-" Keith stopped swimming, looking over at Lotor with tired eyes, "-What do you want?"

"Okay, no beating around the coral, huh?" Lotor said. "Look, I knew something was suspicious with you, and now I've got proof." Keith opened his mouth to defend himself, but Lotor cut him off. "I'm here to warn you, Keith, people have been making reports to my father. You're lucky I overheard him ordering someone to follow you, otherwise it wouldn't have been me that caught you." Keith's fins drooped, hanging down like a sad puppy as he thought about the consequences of getting caught.

"I need to be more careful, I know," Keith sighed.

"No, Keith! You need to stop, you're playing with death here, we both know the consequences of affiliating with humans!" Lotor hissed, losing his temper with the mermaid.

"It's my choice!" Keith yelled back.

"YOU'RE GOING TO GET YOURSELF KILLED!!" Lotor yelled louder this time, causing silence to come crashing down around them as the severity of the situation really settled in around Keith. He felt like he was a helpless human drowning. "Not to mention what happens to Humans... who know too much," Lotor added, not having to say anything more than that for Keith to understand what he meant.

"I - I know, I let emotions cloud my judgement..." Keith agreed.

Lotor paused, looking up at the sun shining through the water. "Humans don't understand what it's like to almost lose their species, not like you guys do." Lotor looked back at Keith, a sad smile on his lips as he places a hand on the boy's shoulder. "I'm not telling you to cut things off, but think. Please." With that Lotor swam away, reminding Keith of what Lance had done a mere few minutes ago.

Keith swam home slowly, his head clouded with thoughts and questions, none of which he wanted to answer. He lied down on his bed, looking up at the rock roof above him. Blue light shone through his window, reminding him of the deep blue eyes of Lance. Keith bit his lip and rolled over, blocking the window out from sighed, he sighed deeply and slowly started to drift off to sleep.


	10. A Shark and A Cave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [My Tumblr](https://theaviandragon.tumblr.com/) I write a bunch of stuff there that isn't published here, so if you like my stuff go check that out!

Keith felt like an asshole. A complete and utter asshole.

He had heard the rumours around town, a group of humans were on the beach every day, not leaving until it was almost midnight. Their descriptions roughly matched the people he had grown to love, he knew they were looking for him... they were probably worried sick; he hadn't gone to the surface in days.

His heart ached and he hated that it did. He hated that he had feelings he couldn't control, but he couldn't bring himself to hate Lance, no matter how hard he tried. It still wasn't a crush, maybe he was on the borderline of it, but not yet. However, that was probably worse, a part of his brain was just yelling _'go to him! See what develops!'_ but he couldn't bring himself to do it.

Lotor's words constantly echoed through his head, spinning around and around, gaining momentum every time he heard them. He would always sit in the public library, in a small dark corner, trying to pull himself into a different world. Recently it's been a book about the Human world actually, a fictional tale of a group of humans who went on a quest into space, fighting evil in robotic wolves. It was ridiculous, but it pulled him away, even if it was only for a moment. He had been there day in and day out, hoping that he'd find an answer to his problems in the pages of a book. He never did though.

Whilst he hadn't been to the surface in days, he'd think about it, almost constantly. He was always stuck between a rock and a hard place, sometimes more literally than figuratively, like right now.

_'We're going to do it,'_

_'No we're not,'_

_'But, we can see Lance,'_

_'Yeah, but consider this - it's a crazy idea - but what if we just... keep hiding?'_

_'You make a convincing argument, Keith'_

_'Why thank you, Keith!'_

He was arguing with himself, each half of his brain screaming like a devil and angel on his shoulder. He was wedged between a rock and a bed of coral, hiding in the shadows it cast over him. The beach he was oh so familiar with was only a few meters away, all he had to do was swim up, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Lance was there he could feel it.

"PIDGE!! STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!!" Okay, so he could hear him too, but that's not important, he could feel him most of all. Occasionally he could see a flicker of tan skin through the water above him, but only for a moment, Lance doesn't tend to stay in the same spot for long.

Keith felt himself subconsciously reaching out, outspread fingers reaching towards the boy that was just out of reach, if he had the courage to move even a few meters he could see those eyes he longed to see. If only.

He bit his lip, his fins twitching ever so slightly, maybe he should just face his fear and go up, he's never let Lotor tell him what to do before... why should he now? Before he could make up his mind, he heard a shrill scream in the distance; well, to be more specific, above him.

"OH MY GOD THERE'S A SHARK!! THERE IS A SHARK IN THE WATER!! OH MY GOD!!" Hunk screamed, a loud splashing noise following close behind his scream as he ran out of the water. "IT'S GOING TO EAT ME!!"

"But... you're on land..." Pidge responded, her voice sounding slightly wheezed and struggled like she was being crushed by a massive weigh- Oh, hunk was bear hugging her, wasn't he? That guy needs to realise how strong he really is.

"IT'LL STILL EAT ME!!" A few bubbles slipped out of Keith's mouth as he laughed, god how he missed the group's antics. He, however, quickly had more pressing matters, like the shark pressing his nose into the Mermaids tail. He was testing to see if Keith was a mermaid or a siren, sirens were poisonous to sharks, mermaids, however, were delicious. Being Half siren did nothing to help him, other than allowing him to FUCKING SWIM.

Keith places a hard punch on the shark's nose, taking the opportunity to get the heck out of dodge, he swam at a sprint, his tail whipping wildly as he swam as fast as he could manage. It didn't take long for his tail and gills to start burning, but the adrenaline coursing through his blood was enough to force him to keep going. That and the imminent threat of the shark eating him whole.

"Was that?" He heard in the distance, just over the splashing of his tail and the pounding in his head. "Keith..." Lance whispered, just quiet enough for the mermaid to miss in his scramble to get away, it was hard to miss a fury of red and black zipping around in the water, especially when there was a shark just behind it. Keith dove down, knowing that sharks weren't too good at making sudden sharp turns, desperately paddling anywhere he could.

Think, think. Come on brain.

He instantly went back to a few weeks ago.

\----

"What's this?" Keith asked, awkwardly poking the bulky thing in front of him.

"It's a computer, I want to show you a movie," Lance said, cracking the rectangle in half to reveal a black screen. "I heard that gasp, and no I didn't break it. It's supposed to do that."

Slowly sound emerged from the metallic contraption and the black screen was replaced with... water? Fish were swimming past as a few words were displayed prominently on the screen. Keith pressed his hand to the screen, expecting to be able to push through it. "How did the fish get in there?" He had to get them out, the fish were probably so scared.

"No, this is a movie! It's called 'Finding Nemo' it's a classic," Lance explained, all while navigating the menu like a pro. Eventually, there was a scene where two of the fish were being chased through a thing called a submarine, a shark close behind them. The fish fled through a hole, that was big enough for them and not quite big enough for the shark, leaving its head trapped. It was able to wiggle free quickly, but it gave the fish enough time to get a bit of a head start.

"That was risky," Keith interrupted, looking at the video in front of him.

"Yeah, well, people - I mean fish - do crazy things under pressure," Lance said with a shrug, not looking away from the movie.

\-------

Keith smiled as he passed a cave, there was a small opening in the rock wall, probably only big enough for a mermai- Now, that gave Keith an idea. Honestly, it reminded him of an idea Lance would have, something that he thought of and really didn't think through... maybe he's affected Keith more than he'd like to admit.

Here goes nothing. Keith quickly shot up, doing a loop in the air so he was going back the way he came, he swerved to the right and felt something brush against his tail, the shark was so close. He prayed to every god and greater power he could think of and dove through the hole. 'Please don't be a dead end, please don't be too small for me, please don't be big enough for the shark'.

To his immediate relief (and the shark's clear annoyance) he fit through the gap with ease, the shark not so much. Small rocks fell from the roof above him as the shark slammed into the wall repeatedly, never breaking through. Keith spun around only to be met with a wall, the cave was only about the size of his room, maybe a bit smaller. There was barely enough room for him to comfortably swim around, the only light was through the hole, that was often being covered by the shark as it swam past. This could have gone worse, but it certainly could have gone better.

He was trapped in a small cave, a hungry and agitated shark prowling around outside, and a weird algae covered book in the corner. Well, that's new. Keith paddled over to it, placing a single finger on its cover, ignoring the shiver that went through him when he touched the slimy surface. His eyes widened when he wiped off the thick layer of algae hiding the cover.

**Siren abilities and how to use them.**


	11. Shape-Shifting

_Legs._

_Long, leg._

_Long, tan, legs._

_Wait no, Just normal legs, yep, normal legs that aren't attached to an equally beautiful torso. Fuck, not again._

Keith snapped his eyes open again, he flicked his tail in annoyance, the tail that was still very much a tail.

"Just like think of a generic human!" He ordered himself, more like he was talking to his own brain. It's not like he's not trying It always starts as a faceless pale blob, but then it slowly morphs into... well, him. Every time without fail he'd close his eyes just to see Lance laughing, his smile filling his mind with warm memories like the sun was shining on him and only him.

He groaned and paddled over to the book that was lying open on a particular chapter, was he reading it wrong?

**Shape-shifting.**

**To assist in hunting and capturing prey, it is possible for sirens to change their physical appearance. The changes last as long as the Siren requires but be aware that changing back and forth is draining on one's energy and large amounts of food and rest will be required afterwards.**  
**Shape-shifting is recommended for fitting into small places or making a quick getaway, once you have been transformed into the living creature you require you will inherit their abilities. Mixing and matching is also possible but not recommended, more often than not the organisms structure doesn't line up properly and the siren can be left physically maimed. (A lion and a fish would collapse in on itself and the heart wouldn't be able to beat.)**

**If shape-shifting is required, it is suggested that the siren is aware of their location when they transform (do not transform into a bird underwater). Please remember that if you collapse or are knocked unconscious, you will naturally change back to your natural form. The longest recommended time for transformation is a week at a time, any longer than that could result in the inability to transform back. It is suggested that for energy conservation, sirens de-transform for at least an hour every day.**

**Shape-shifting is considered a reasonably simple spell, however, a second siren is suggested to watch for the first transformation, to ensure that nothing goes wrong. All that is needed is an open space, just in case you transform into a larger animal accidentally, simply close your eyes and picture the creature, your features (eye colour, skin colour, hair colour) stay the same, so please stay away from humans. Humans will see you as a unique version of that species and kidnap you for experimentation.**

Keith isn't quite sure if he's understanding this properly, but there's a chance he could shapeshift into a person, you know, grow himself some legs. If he was able to do that, well, there's really nothing stopping him from going on the surface as he pleases. Though, that's if he can even work out how to work it. 

_Regular legs._

_Just, like a normal person, like the ones I see in books._

_Yeah, there we go... No, you are not morphing again, stop, brain, please._

Keith felt an odd stretching, it wasn't painful, but it was like a dull burn, like a painless sunburn spreading across his tail. He opened his eyes and looked down at his legs... if you could even really call them that.  
His tail had split in two, he had two long legs like tails moving freely, the leg-tail bent at what you could call a knee, almost kicking to stay afloat rather than wiggling. His fins were significantly smaller, instead of the fan-like tail, it was a small ribbon of tails hanging sadly at the end, much like a curtain. They weren't quite legs, but they weren't a tail either.

"Well, this is uh... progress?" He whispered to no one, he wasn't really sure of what to think of the whole tail fiasco. Keith bent his leg-tail to test out his new appendage, it gent awkwardly, aching as it did so. It was cracking like an old house, his joint not being used to this kind of movement. 

He looked down at a small shard of glass on the ground, admiring in his reflection in its shine. His red spots were faded, now a light pink that was only barely visible, his ears had shrunk to about the size of a human's, still fins though. He could feel his breathing getting sharper, he could still breathe fine, but he felt a new weight on his chest like he wasn't designed to be this deep down. His gills were slowly closing over, the gaps becoming smaller as less water passed through. He could move the fins on his tail freely like he had toes that had been webbed over with tail, his joins were still cracking, but they could move slightly more freely than before. The shark had long ago left, leaving Keith alone in the cave, and now seemed to be a good of a time as ever to escape the dark hellhole he trapped himself in.

He tried to flick his tail, only to be met with a tiny push forward, not the usual strong one he was used to. The water was passing through his two leg-tails and not giving him that power he needed. He settled for an odd scissor kick, moving his legs up and down as he wiggled, it wasn't graceful, but it's all he could manage with a half-formed tail.  
He hit the surface with a gasp, the odd feeling of Oxygen rushing into his lungs feeling new, he never really breathed on land, he did of course, but it wasn't his main source of oxygen, he always used his gills. Everything itched and burnt, it didn't hurt, but it made him feel like he needed to claw off his skin. He glanced over at the bag he had hidden in a cave, he stole it off the beach a few days ago, it held human clothes that he could change into if he so desired. That is if he can work out the shapeshifting mumbo-jumbo.

He closed his eyes and the burning got hotter and hotter, it remained painless, but he dug his fingers into his thighs, feeling like they weren't supposed to be there. His claws were quickly dulling, the webbing between his fingers and newly forming toes disappearing, his fins were completely gone, he was left with slightly red ears and a few spots of red on the back of his neck. Keith felt himself slip underwater, his tail giving out under him. 

His eyes shot open when he couldn't breathe, his gills were completely shut off, a smooth section of skin on his neck in their place. He could barely swim, his tail was completely gone at this point, leaving a pair of weak legs in their place. He pulled himself through the water using his arms, the only part of his body that was still strong enough to move. He gripped onto the rock where he had stashed his bag, pulling himself onto the rock and groaning loudly. His legs burned, this time it was a muscle ache like they weren't supposed to be used this way.

He looked down at his ta- legs, two long pale legs stretching down into the water. He poked his thigh, his eyebrows knitting together at the feeling. Why were they so soft? He straightened his leg, not understanding why they wouldn't bend any further than them being straight like his tail could. Why could they only bend one way? Keith pulled out a pair of red boxers and slid them on, ignoring the wobbling of his legs as he lifted himself up to slide them on.  
He grabbed the wall next to him, using it as something to lean on as he slowly rose to his feet. "This is by far the weirdest thing I've ever done," Keith mumbled absently to himself, pushing his hair back and straightening up fully. He grabbed out a short red jacket and pair of jeans, it wasn't what he'd usually wear, but it'll do. He slipped them on and looked himself up and down, he really did look human, didn't he? The sensation of being able to move two limbs independently was maddening, he kept going to move them both at once like he had with his tail.

Keith lifted up his leg, not bending it and leaning forward, stumbling as it hit the ground and bend naturally. He waved his arms around and gripped the wall tighter, fearing falling flat on his face. Nope, this isn't normal, no wonder human babies take so long to master this shit.

He lifted up his other leg, remembering to bend it this time and placing it on the ground without a stumble. He continued this, slowly stepping away from the wall as he got used to the feeling of his feet on the rock beneath him. He stepped onto the beach and holy mother of lions, he could get used to his. He felt the sand between his toes, shifting under his feet, the heat radiating up off it from being in the sun all day. He looked up at the sun and opened up his arms, laughing as he looked up at the crystal blue sky. It was always so cold in the water, the feeling of behind dry and warm was sending shivers down his spine. The sun would always dry him out, always seeming like an evil force, but now it was casting warm rays down on him like it was cheering for him.

"THIS IS AMAZING!!" Keith yelled, kicking up some of the sand with his new feet, god he doesn't want to ever transform back. He picked up to a run, his body keeping up with him through instinct, never missing a beat. He spun around, a massive smile on his face as he jumped in the air. Whoa! Why aren't humans jumping all the time! The air rushing past him as he fell back to the ground was invigorating, the shock of hitting the ground making him giggle like a little girl. He saw a group of Humans walking away from the beach, his interest peaking as he saw them talking about something called _'Ice-cream'._  

Keith always had to watch human culture from a distance, what's stopping him from joining in the fun for once?


	12. Hoodies

Humans were so diverse, it was a welcomed change if we're being honest, each human looked different, every single one doing a different thing at a different speed. Sometimes Keith would walk past a group of humans huddled outside their office building, desperately sucking the life out of the cigarettes before their boss caught them, sometimes he'd see someone struggling to carry a pile of boxes, sometimes is was rowdy teenagers skating down the street. Everything was new, nothing stayed the same for longer than a minute. Under the sea, mermaids didn't have the luxury of leisure time, so everyone was remarkably similar, doing the same thing day in and day out, less they risk another extinction. Keith had pulled up the hoodie of his jacket, keeping the hot sun off of him, and judging glares off his face. 

The weirdest thing was the weight he felt, underwater he was practically weightless, but here he could feel something pulling him down, the feeling of his legs being pulled down was something he still wasn't used to. He also wasn't used to falling, it hurt like hell and he quickly learnt gravity was an unforgiving bitch. Some Humans were rude and selfish, one, in particular, was so busy running that they didn't notice Keith walking down the street, and ran into him. They both hit the ground with a pained groan.  
"Watch it!" The human groaned, climbing off of Keith and standing up, not offering to help him up. Keith wobbled to his feet, praying that it wasn't too noticeable that he had no idea what he was doing. 

"You watch it, I was just swimmi- walking!" Keith's eyes went wide at his slip up, playing it off as a cough. The human scoffed as plugged in his headphones, bumping Keith's shoulder on the way past. Keith assumed that everything he heard about Humans was wrong when he met Lance (and the rest of Voltron), that all humans were actually really nice. Let's just say the Mermaids assumptions of the species weren't unfounded. Keith brushed himself off and tried to regain his composure, the idea of walking down a crowded street was suddenly becoming far less inviting. Keith saw a dark alleyway to the side, providing a shortcut to the other side of the building. Not a single rushing person in sight. Why didn't all humans walk down here, sure it was a bit wet and smelly, but so were most people...

When Keith felt a large hand on his back he squeaked and jumped around, grabbing the hand and pinning it to the persons back. "WHOA WHOA!! CALM DOWN!! I'M NOT GONNA HURT YOU!!" The man flailed, raising his hand that wasn't pinned as a sign of peace. Keith hissed under his breath and let the guys arm go, noting the cart full of boxes behind the man, that he was presumably wheeling through the alleyway. "I was just heading to a friends bakery, you look a little lost, buddy," The man spoke again, his face shrouded in darkness.

"I am a bit, how'd you know?" Keith said, leaning against the wall behind him.

"No one walks down an alleyway, especially one as gross as this." The voice sounded familiar, Keith couldn't quite place it. He knew the stranger couldn't see his face because of his hoodie, but he wasn't necessarily inclined to show his face either. He did still have a few red marks on his cheeks and on the back of his neck.

"You did," Keith said, raising an eyebrow skeptically. A throaty laugh emerged from the man in front of him.

"You've got me there, but I need to get these cakes delivered, and this is the quickest way... and I have a feeling you're not a baker."

"Baker? Cake?" Keith questioned out loud, he hoped that these weren't common terms for humans, but he wanted to know what his stranger was talking about, even if it seemed weird for him to ask.

"Wait, you're asking what cake is? You walk down alleyways, you don't know what cake is, it's almost like you're not huma-" The man but himself off the alleyway going deathly silent. "Nah, that's impossible," He whispered under his breath, was the man onto him?

"I should get going," Keith said, turning and speed walking away, he needed to get out of this area as soon as possible. Walking fast caused him to stumble, his legs not bending properly and arms stiffly by his side instead of freely swaying like most people did when walking. 

"Wait!" The man shouted, grabbing Keith's shoulder and pulling him backwards, causing his hoodie to fall from his face momentarily. Keith spun around, pulling his hoodie back up before he exposed the telltale spots on the back of his neck, but it was already too late. "...Keith?" The man whispered, barely loud enough for him to hear, he heard none the less.

"...Fuck," Keith cursed as he stopped in his tracks. How did they know him, was he followed? Oh god, was it one of the Galra soldiers, did Lotor fail to keep his father off of Keith's trail

"Who taught yOU THAT WORD!!" The man yelled, his voice getting louder like an angry fathe- Oh, Keith knows who it is now.

"If I say Pidge, will you be mad?" Keith questioned, slowly turning his head so he could see the figure behind him, his metallic arm shining in the little light the sun provided, yeah, that was Shiro.

"I knew it," Shiro whispered under his breath, a small hiss in his words as he clenched his teeth together. "So uh... were those brownies Hunk gave me laced with something or are you actually here?"

"I would like to say the first one, but there's no point in trying to deny it," Keith said with a shrug, pulling off his hoodie. His red marks instantly started sparkling in the light, like bits of glitter stuck to his face. he didn't have close to as many as he did when he was in his natural form, but he still had a few scattered around. Enough to make any human suspicious. 

"I - uh- HOW?!" Shiro was at a lost for words, within a few weeks of meeting a mermaid, he caught said mermaid wandering around in an alleyway. It was a too bit much for his mind if we're being honest.

"It’s a really long story," Keith said carefully, approaching his friend slowly. "I'm part siren, and they have special abilities, I'm not going to go into much detail, so, please don’t freak out.” 

"Freak out?! Me?! Never, it's just I'm talking to a siren, you know, a fictional species known for _eating people_. My mermaid friend can shapeshift, and he's standing in front of me, but I'm **PERFECTLY CALM**!!" Shiro was rambling his voice going higher as he freaked out, not taking a breath once in the entire time he talked, he was moving his arms around, eventually resting his head on them as he tried his hardest not to start screaming.

"You think I'd eat you?" Keith said in disgust, he wasn't even offended, just repulsed by the idea of eating a person. "Gross. Humans are super fatty, not to mention dirty.... I don't know where you've been." Keith said as he scrunched up his nose. 

"Great, good to know we're on the same page, on eating me," Shiro said with an eye roll. "So, why are you here?"

"I feel like if I say sightseeing you won't believe me," Keith said, while Shiro turned around and grabbed his cart again, and the two of them finally started to leave the godforsaken ally. 

"Unless said sights starts with 'L' and ends with 'Ance'... No," Shiro mocked, the cart squeaking as it moved.

"Whatever, I'm not even planning on visiting him... at least not today," Keith explained with a shrug, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets. A silence fell around them, only lasting a few seconds before Shiro awkwardly cleared his throat and spoke up.

"Lance has really missed you... He's been really worried, I think you owe him an explanation." Shiro was right and they both knew it, Keith just dropped off of the face of the earth for a week, when they had previously met every single day, never even five minutes late.

"Yeah I know, things have just been crazy; I mean, if me having legs didn't explain that enough..."

"He never stops talking about you, like... ever," Shiro laughed. "He goes on and on and OOOOOONNNN."

Shiro then went on the explain the countless times Lance had openly gushed about the mermaid, calling his smile the _'sun itself',_ saying his eyes the prettiest thing he's ever seen, going on about how breathtaking his entire form was, or just how Keith's personality clashed with his is the _best way possible_. Lance was pinning, and obviously too, of course, Keith had no idea. How could he? He had never experienced romance before, let alone someone with romantic feelings towards **him**. It was a lot, something that would take more than a few ~~chapters~~ weeks to wrap his mind around.

 Denial, thy name is Keith

 


	13. Vocab Cards

_Left, right, left, right, left, left. DAMN IT._

Keith felt himself stumble as he desperately grabbed for Shiro's arm to brace his fall. "This is impossible," Keith grumbled as he pushed himself back up to his feet. He could walk, sure, but my god was it still a work in progress. He'd fall at least once every five minutes, his legs tripping over each other as he awkwardly pretended to be a normal eighteen-year-old boy. Which was a lot harder than it seemed.

Shiro had set up what he called "Human lessons." Keith would go to his house and they'd walk around, learning about human culture and basic coordination, so Keith didn't look like a fish out of water (pun intended) whenever he moved.

"Now, what would you say if a teen your age approached you?" Shiro quizzed as he gripped Keith's shoulders and slowly stepped with him.

"Hello, fellow youth," Keith said, awkwardly waving as the words fell out of his mouth, a small (yet proud) smile appearing on his lips the second after. Shiro didn't want to crush the poor boy's dreams, he really didn't want to, but my god.

"That's perfect-" Keith smiled before Shiro continued "-If the teen was born in the 1800's." Keith's smile instantly dropped as he grumbled something at Shiro, crossing his arms.

"It's not my fault teenage language is dumb!" Keith pulled his vocab cards out of his pocket, quickly flicking through them before pulling one out. "This is not _'lit'_ Shiro," Keith said as he read his card carefully with squinted eyes.

Shiro groaned and pulled the card out of his hands, ripping it in half and throwing it over his shoulder. "I told you to stop taking cards from Pidge, she's trying to make you look stupid." Keith had been collecting cards from everyone in the group (besides Lance, who he was yet to visit) with certain phrases written on them, along with their definitions and pronunciation.

"Shiro, no! I just learnt that one!" Keith whined as he ran over to the ripped up piece of paper, placing the two halves together and sighing when he realized it was all for nothing.

"It's fine, Keith, the word's dead anyway," Shiro said with a shrug as he pulled the rest of the cards from Keith's hand, flicking through them as he mumbled differing sentiments, most of them revolving around how much he was going to kill pidge later.

"Nice try, I'm not that dumb, words can't die! They're not living things!" Keith was running around behind Shiro, catching the pieces of paper he was throwing in the air behind him and shoving them in his pockets, hoping that Shiro wouldn't notice him keeping the vocab cards.

"Trust me, they can, Lance has killed a fair few by himself." Shiro didn't glance up from his cards as a shiver ran through him, mumbling something about 'moist'. Shiro shuffled the cards in his hands, tidying them up before passing them back to Keith with a small smile. There was one card on the top of the pile that caught his attention again, causing Shiro to retract his hands and scan the card over a few times, a small shocked gasp escaping his lips. "You do know what this means right?" Shiro said as he passed the card to back to Keith. Keith took the card and thought back his secret human lessons with Pidge and Hunk. He was planning to surprise Lance with his extensive knowledge of human culture, to sweep Lance off his feet with words.

"Yeah." Keith nodded and put the card down to prove how much he had been studying. "Boyfriend: a boy that is a close friend. Synonyms include Bae, boo, honey, and significate other."  Keith had a proud smile on his face as he looked up at Shiro with a sparkle in his eye, looking so proud of his knowledge. "I know more! I can show you-" Keith ran over to his cards, flicking through them until he found his favourite new words, passing them to Shiro enthusiastically, bouncing in the spot he stood.

 _'This boy is too pure for this world'_ Shiro thought to himself as he looked over the cards he was given.

**Cake: A spongy and sweet flour-based food, often eaten at celebrations - Hunk.**

**Movie: A story recorded by a camera and shown through moving pictures - Allura.**

**Pickup Line: A line used with the intention of opening up conversation, with the end goal of a relationship or sex. P.S Lance uses way too many of these and they never work**

**\- Pidge.**

**Beyoncé: A woman who is known for her singing voice (and overall talent), known as a "Queen" by many girls (and Lance) - Pidge.**

"See! I'm starting to learn the names of people too!" Keith said as he handed Shiro even more cards, smiling as he pointed at the names and talked about what that person did, even if his pronunciation was slightly off - looking at you _Donold Tramp_. Keith has been working really hard lately, every night he'd go over his vocab cards like he was studying for one of his final exams, he also had been getting weird looks at the library because of all of the human history books he's been hiring out. "Do you think Lance will be impressed?" Keith looked so hopeful, Shiro couldn't help but nod and smile down at the boy. Keith jumped and clasped his hands together, then ripping the cards away from Shiro to practice some more.

Shiro looked away from him for a moment and grabbed his phone, dialling Pidges phone number, it only rang twice before she picked up. "Hey, what's up?" Crunching could be heard in the background and the rustling of a bag, Pidge was clearly lying on her couch eating chips and watching Netflix, not working like she was supposed to be.

"Why have you been teaching Keith that Boyfriends and friends are the same things!?" Shiro instantly scolded, not beating around the bush for even a second. He could hear the crunching instantly stop when Pidge realized she had been caught red-handed. "I understand what you were planning, but I would like to remind you what would happen if someone called Lance their boyfriend." It would be a whole lot of screaming, red faces, more screaming and possible fainting. Lance was a flirt, he didn't bother hiding it, but his flirting was rarely reciprocated, so whenever someone showed minimal interest in him, that boy lost his damn mind. And God forbid Keith of all people showed said interest, Lance would probably fall into a coma and never wake up.

"Please don't take away my card privileges!" Pidge started begging, not even bothering to defend herself, she was busted and they all knew it. "I still want to get him to make vine references!! I HAVE SO MUCH TO TEACH HIM!!" The very idea of Keith becoming another Pidge was enough for him to hang up the phone without a response if that boy ever makes a vine reference, Shiro is going to be forced to throw him back into the Ocean.

"Hello, Lance, I was wondering if you would like to go _Bawling_ \- No, wait - If you would like to go _bowling_." Keith was walking back and forth, looking at his cards as he strung together sentences, almost all of them revolving around Lance. Shiro couldn't help the smile that started to form on his face, Keith already felt like a little brother to him, someone he needed to look out for and protect... and Keith was really happy whenever Lance was around, that was something he couldn't deny.


	14. A Coffee Shop

_‘You’ve got this Keith. You’ve got this. You’ve practised this a million times, just walk in, order a coffee, sit down and wait. You’ve out swam sharks, snuck around the royal guard, and shapeshifted more times than you can count. A little human interaction is nothing’_

Oh, who was he kidding? He would take a shark over this any day. Keith’s hand naturally slipped to the cards in his pocket, he didn’t need them, not anymore, but it was nice to know that he had his safety net. He had a simple plan, a plan that so far had gone off without a hitch, so why would it go wrong now. Shiro had personally recommended this coffee shop, Hunk worked there so he’d be there to save Keith if everything went pear-shaped.

Keith was getting used to interactions in different settings, how social rules change depending on where you are. You don’t talk in a movie theatre, but you’re expected to talk in friendly movie nights. You don’t jump around in a classroom, but when you go outside for lunch teachers encourage you to. Little things like that, those are the things that he slips up on, tiny little changes that most people don’t even think about.

Also, the language was just weird. Pidge had to spend two hours explaining to Keith why a ‘Booty call’ and a ‘Butt dial’ were two very different things. He still doesn’t fully understand, and he probably never will, but hey, it’s progress.

He walked into the small shop, a quiet bell ringing behind him as he opened the door. It was reasonably empty, just a few college students huddled in various corners, sucking the life out of their coffee as they desperately typed on their keyboard. Keith turned to see Hunk standing at the counter, a small welcoming smile on his face as he ushered Keith towards him.

“Hello, Sir.” Right, Hunk is going to treat him like a stranger, he can do this.

“H-Hello,” Keith said as he kept his eyes trained on his shoes, in a small whisper of a voice.

“A bit louder, buddy, and remember eye contact,” Hunk whispered to him as he leant over the counter, before dropping back into his work mode. “What can I get for you, sir?”

“Right.” Keith made sure to be louder this time, his eyes trailing up to meet hunks warm and welcoming gaze. “Can I please get, one small black coffee?” Keith quickly learnt that he hated the sugary drinks that everyone else adored, they made his face pucker as his mouth was overwhelmed with sugar. You can probably blame the fact that there isn’t anything sweet under the ocean for that, but still, they were disgusting.

“Sure thing, that’ll be $6.50.” Hunk turned and started writing onto a cup, passing it back to his co-worker who groaned and shuffled over to the coffee machine. Keith pulled out a small coin bag, looking at the coins as he tried to remember which coins equalled what amount. Why did humans have such a complicated system? Under the water, you just hunt for your own food or trade different items. What good could a few blobs of metal and some sheets of paper do?

Keith counted the coins in his head and slid them over to Hunk, who counted them again for good measure and popped open the register, dropping them in and shutting it with his hip. “Good job, you’re a natural.” Hunk smiled, Keith didn’t do anything amazing, just talked to him like a regular person, but Hunk always found a way to make him feel special and accomplished. “Now, remember, go sit down over there and wait for someone to call your name.” With that, Keith spun around and walked to the nearest couch, by the pastry case. Keith pulled out his phone, Pidge gave it to him as a gift, she wanted to upgrade so she was going to throw it out anyway. For some reason, this fingerprint recognition never worked for him, so that sucked, and he was stuck with a boring old number password.

 **Keith:** Hey, I ordered the coffee, do you want me to pick up a dunot?

 **Shiro (ICE):** It’s ‘Donut’ and no thanks, I’m good.

 **Shiro (ICE):** Proud of you :)

 **Keith** : Stop.

 **Shiro (ICE):** >:)

 **Shiro (ICE):** >:)))))

 **Keith:** I’ll get Pidge to teach me how to block a number.

 **Shiro (ICE):** >:(

“Hunk! My beautiful friend, the light of my life, the wind under my wings.” Keith looked up from his phone as someone burst into the shop, throwing the door open as he instantly rushed up to the counter and sat on it, leaning back so he was looking at Hunk upside down, laying across the counter. Keith rolled his eyes and didn’t pay any more attention to the stranger, looking down at his phone with a small scoff.

“Get off the counter,” Hunk ordered with a dead glare, walking over to the pastries without another word, pulling out a single muffin and placed in a brown bag before handing it over to the man who had since slid down off the counter. “You should spend your lunch break eating lunch like a normal person, not annoying me.”

“You see my innocent friend, by annoying you, I’m getting lunch.” The stranger wrapped his arm around Hunk, turning around and gesturing towards the sky with the other, pressing their cheeks together as they talked. The stranger shot finger guns at Hunk and he made clicking noises as he stepped away, which cause Keith to look up again. In this light, Keith could get a better look at the stranger. His heart stopped as it lodged in his throat, his breath hitched as the stranger quickly morphed into something else. Keith really shouldn’t have been this shocked, after he saw the stranger drape his body across the counter he should have known who it was.

Lance was standing there, a blue plaid jacket tied loosely around his hips, dressed in ripped jeans and a simple black top. He had his phone in one hand and muffin in the other as he teased Hunk. Hunk subtly glanced to his left, to see Keith having a minor ~~major~~ breakdown.

_‘Oh god, he’s right there. He’s standing right there. What do I do? Do I hide? I don’t have my jacket, damn it, I should just make a run for it…. But, that’ll draw more attention to me, maybe I should just hide. I’ll duck under the table and just pray that he doesn’t notice me. Oh god, why does he look hot? He shouldn’t look hot. Am I red-faced? I totally am, why today? I’m going to kill Shiro, he was the one that suggested this.’_

Keith was spiralling, he was just sitting in his chair and staring at Lance with a dumbfounded expression, his lips parted and eyes wide as saucers as he just stared. He couldn’t do anything else. Keith’s mind had frozen over, Keith.exe had stopped responding, Keith is out of business, closed for renovation. These and so many more expressions could easily sum up how he was feeling, but simply put, Keith was freaking the fuck out.

Hunk, being the amazing person he was, turned Lance around to face the opposite way to Keith. “Hey, have you seen the new paint job? Looks great, huh?” Hunk said as he spun Lance around, silently mouthing to Keith to run and madly gestured towards the door.

Keith slowly stood up, grabbing what was left of his coffee and slowly pushed his chair back, being careful not to scrape it across the floorboards. Keith calmly walked towards the door, covering his face with his hand as he walked behind Lance. Just as he was home free and about to push open the door he heard Lance call out behind him. “Hey! Buddy! You left your phone!” Lance said as he jogged up to him, holding out the phone towards Keith from behind.

“… It’s uh-“ Keith cleared his throat and dropped his voice lower, still not turning around. “-Not mine.” Keith tried to walk forward again, only to be met with a warm hand on his shoulder.

“I’m pretty sure it is, it was at your table.” Curse Lance and his good morals. “Can you just look at it?” Lance asked as he spun Keith around causing him to squeak. Keith instantly looked down at the ground, silently thanking whatever God blessed him with long enough hair to cast a curtain over his face. “Plus I saw you on it when I came in, it’s hard to miss a face as pretty as yo-“ Lance hooked his fingers under Keith’s chin and pulled it up so he could meet his eyes. All words died in his mouth when their eyes met, his mouth opening in a silent scream.

Lance instantly pulled his fingers away like they had been burnt, his eyes still fixed on Keith’s face as they darted around, taking in his every detail. Lance slowly brought his hand up to his arm, pinching his skin tightly a few times before he shook his head, blinking as he looked at Keith again. Lance opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out, a small scream being all he could make as his eyebrows furrowed. “You – Mermaid – here – water?!” Lance was flailing, shocked sounds and the occasional word slipping past his lips as he flailed his arms around, vaguely gesturing around him as he spouted nonsense.

Keith reached for the only thing he could count on in moments like this: his beloved vocab cards. With a shaky hand, Keith shuffled through them and cleared his throat. “L-Lance, you’re really activating my particle barrier right now,” Keith’s voice came out shakier than he intended, but he got his point across. He’s actually not too sure what that point even was, but it sounded cool.

Lances shocked face slowly slipped into a smile as he looked at Keith, a small huff of laughter following closely after. “Was that a pickup line?” Lance said with a sly smirk as he stepped closer to Keith. Keith’s face instantly heated up, they hadn’t been this close before, at least not since Keith saved his life. “Ha, Allura told you to say that didn’t she?” Keith felt himself slowly calming down as Lance looked at him with a fond smile, this heart still hammering in his chest but now for a completely different reason.

Keith didn’t trust his voice, so he just nodded sharply, his lips pursed into a thin line. Without a word, Lance wrapped his arm around Keith guiding him out the door as he yelled at hunk over his shoulder. Yeah, they had some serious catching up to do.


	15. The 'Date'

“Come on, it couldn’t have been that amazing,” Said both Hunk and Shiro from two different parts of town, one in a small suburban apartment and the other sitting by the ocean.

Keith’s first reply was muffled as he hid under the water, the faint sound of screaming bubbling up from under the surface. The second that Keith left Lance’s house he ran straight to the ocean, calling Shiro on the way before diving straight in, it was safe, comforting. It was nice to feel his tail again, to feel the weightlessness of the water around him as he floated in his element. Keith resurfaces, giving Shiro a love-struck grin. “No, you don’t understand-“

 

 

“- It was amazing, Hunk!” Lance said in his apartment, sitting on the couch as he buried his face in his pillow, hiding in his cocoon of blankets and pillows as Hunk sat next to him, a sly smile on his face. When Hunk came home half an hour ago to see Lance huddled on the couch, red-faced as he heaved wheezed breaths, Lance was instantly bombarded with questions… most of which he avoided as he tried to calm himself down.

“Weren’t you just going to talk?” Hunk asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked at the scene in front of him.

“Yeah, but we got sort of-“

 

 

“-Sidetracked, we talked for a bit about why I’ve been MIA, but it just kind of shifted.” Keith leant on the rock where Shiro was sitting, his tail poking out of the water as he rested his chin on his arms. “Like, we just talked, about nothing and everything I guess.”

“So, you just talked? And that’s why you’re screaming in the ocean at midnight?” The sun had set ages ago, Shiro was almost asleep when his phone was bombarded with texts from Keith, most of them being complete gibberish from when his mind was basically goo, thanks to Lance. The most memorable text would have to be **“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH”**. Truly Keith is the most eloquent of texters.

“Well, no, see after a while-“

 

 

“-We got hungry, right? So I thought, _‘Hey! Keith has probably never had Pizza before’_ so I took him to that shop down the street… you know the good one with the ice-cream machine?” Hunk nodded in response, completely and utterly enthralled in the reason his best friend/roommate was currently having an aneurysm on the couch over a boy. “So, I go up to order, and he comes up with me like some kind of lost puppy.”

“Awww,” Hunk coos.

“Right?! God, he’s just-“ Lance cuts him off with a scream, summarising all of his thoughts perfectly. “-Anyway, so we order and sit down in a booth together and wait for our pizza.”

“No! You sat in a booth?!” Hunk couldn’t count the number of times Lance had gone on and on about how romantic it would be to cuddle with someone in a booth, shoulder to shoulder as you quietly giggled, and here he was actually doing that. Lance would go on and on about all of the girls he's bring to the pizza shop, how it had the best food, best lighting and held a special place in his heart. It wasn't that surprising that Keith was the first person he brought there, based on how close the two of them had grown.

“RIGHT?!” Lance was getting progressively louder, clutching his pillow as he talked. “So we got the pizza and honestly, I’ve been seen someone so confused by-“

 

 

“-Cheese, it’s so weird. Like, I couldn’t eat it, it’s just stringy and I couldn’t swallow it. So I ended up awkwardly picking it off,” Keith said as he swam around in circles on his back, his face slowly going red as he thought about the next part. “So, we ate and it was fine, but I was feeling really queasy, so I told Lance.”

“Hun, no.” Shiro sighed as he looked at Keith with a sympathetic look. “I told you, talk to me about this stuff before you tell him anything!” Shiro already knew where this was going, based on context clues and just his overall attidude, Keith was telling him about something that definitely wasn't sickness.

“So… I told him that my-“

 

 

“-His heart was speeding up around me, he felt all warm and fuzzy and his face was always red,” Lance said as he looked and Hunk, his facing dropping to a neutral expression as he sighed, a dopey smile on his lips as he thought back to it. “It was just!!” Lance flails his arms around wildly making vague animal-like noises as his repeatedly hits Hunk with his pillow.

“So? You know what that means right?” Hunk leant closer, eyeing his friend up as he awaited a response, protecting his body from the perpetual pillow attacks as Lance freaked out.

“Yeah, he’s lactose intolerant…” Lance looked at Hunk like it was the simplest thing ever, one eyebrow quirking as he stared, confused by Hunks annoyed expression. “Anyway, I told him it was normal, and that I feel jittery around him for a different reason… because you know, I want to drop hints that I’m like… you know… Kind of into him.”

 

 

“That means he likes you!” Hunk and Shiro speak in sync, an annoyed expression on both of their faces as their friends talk about their _‘confessions’_ at the same time, knowing full well both went over the other person head. Both boys instantly started spouting nonsense about how the other person wasn’t into them, probably didn’t even like guys, didn’t want to date a different species, was probably uncomfortable the whole time… and the cherry on top; was only hanging out with them out of pity.

 

 

“Anyway, that doesn’t matter." Lance waves Hunk off, even thought it very much does matter to him "So, we finish eating and decide we’d come back here, chill for a little bit, you know let the Pizza digest or whatever.” Lance shrugs, trying to look casual even though he’s barely fighting off the massive smile that’s continuously worming its way onto his lips the second Keith’s name even leaves his lips. It wasn’t hard to tell how Lance was feeling, or more specifically what he felt towards a certain finned boy.

“Or whatever?” Hunk scoffs, looking at him with a jokingly disappointed glare. “You suck at ‘playing it casual’.”

“Shut it! So, we come back here, and he instantly runs into my room, claiming how cool everything is, saying how-“

 

 

 

“- He had plush animals, Shiro! Like replicas of real animals! Not photos in books, like soft ones!!” Keith throws his arms up. “And there was his big one, it was called a hippo, and it’s so cool!!”

“They’re rather common, Keith… Stuffed teddy bears are a very common thing for people to own,” Shiro explains, still failing at taking any of the wonder from Keith’s eyes, there’s practically a sparkle as he talks. It was easily the coolest thing Keith had seen, small fluffy versions of animals he had read were deadly and hard to find, right there in Lance’s room! God, human culture was so much cooler than mermaid culture.

“It doesn’t matter! Anyway, he lets me take one into the living room to hug while we talk, long story short I go to the bathroom and while I’m in there the faucet breaks, and water gets everywhere.” Keith was left completely soaked from head to toe, his clothes sticking to him like a second skin as he awkwardly padded back into the living room to explain what happened. Never in his life had he ever been so uncomfortable soaked in water. “So, he gives me some clothes to change into-“

 

 

“-Hunk, I almost died right then and there.” As much as Lance sounded like he was joking, both of them knew he really wasn’t. “He came out in my **baggy hoodie** and shorts, like the fabric flopped around his arms, and the hoodie fell to midway down his thighs… Jesus, I can die happy.” Really, Lance shouldn't have expected anything else when he gave Keith his hoodie, but he wasn't really thinking. His main priority was get Keith out of the tight wet clothes before he actually pounced on him... he really should have thought about how his hoodie would have only made things worse.

“You didn’t do anything, did you?” Hunk knew that Lance would never intentionally hurt anyone, ever… but that boy also has horrible impulse control and also knew how much Keith liked him back… so nothing would surprise him at this point.

“Oh god no! He just sat down next to me and I prayed to every god and greater power to keep my thoughts pure.” Keith eventually sat down crossed legged next to Lance, hoodie bunched around his body as he pulled the hippo closer, smiling as he talked and laughed with Lance. “Dude, also I got the hoodie back when he left and-“

 

 

“-It smelt like him! Like is that a human thing? Like you release pheromones or something?” Keith didn’t wait for an answer before he started rambling again. “Actually, I don’t care, because I’m damn grateful for it either way!”

“Nah that’s common, he probably wears cologne or something.” Shiro waves it off, quickly explaining so Keith could get back to his story.

“So we talk for ages, and then put on a movie.” Keith wasn’t really paying attention to the movie, he couldn’t tell you the plot for the life on him. It was idle background chatter as he paid close attention to the quiet sound of Lance’s breathing, the subtle beat of his heart, or the commentary he provides during the movie, like context for the jokes or universe… stuff that you’d only undertint If you were human. “So, mid-way thought he does this thing-“

 

 

“- I made the move!” Hunk looked at him weirdly, furrowing his eyebrows. “You know! THE MOVE!” Lance fake yawns, stretching his arms up as he moves them over the side of the couch, resting him next to him as if there was another person next to him.

“No!”

“Yes! And the boy didn’t even _flinch!_! He actually cuddled in closer a few minutes later, like he doesn’t even know the implications behind it… which he probably doesn’t but that’s not the point! HE WAS LYING ON **MY** CHEST WHILE WEARING **MY** HOODIE!!” This boy was really going to be the death of Lance, he was cuddling with Lance as they watched a movie, all while wearing Lance’s clothes… like, of course, he didn’t know that’s something that couples do…. But also, it’s not healthy for Lance’s sanity. “He’s just –“

 

 

“-Perfect!!” Keith yells, diving under the water again to let out a few more screams, bubbles floating to the surface before he does. Keith jumps out and does a massive flip, his tail flipping in the air as his body powers out of the water, screaming the entire time… because of course, he was. You know the feeling when you get excited about something and adrenaline just courses through your blood, and you can’t help but move. “I just-“

 

 

“- I can’t deal with this!” Lance yells, throwing his pillow across the room as he hides under his blanket, crawling over to Hunk and laying down in his lap as he looked up at him, “He’s just so pretty! How can someone have eyes so perfect! And at first, I hated his hair, but it’s so soft! And it suits him too!”

“You’re so whipped,” Hunk so astutely adds, looking down at him with a mocking smile, cooing about Keith and Lance ‘sitting in a tree’.

“Don’t say that to him, he’d probably go a climb a tree knowing him.” That was probably supposed to come out cold and callous, maybe slightly annoyed yet neutral, but all Lance could muster was a soft warm voice as he spoke.

“So what are you going to do?” Hunk asks.

“Hells if I know… maybe just suffer in my bisexuality until I die a lonely old man.”

“Orrrrrrrr.” Hunk coos gently shoving Lance off his lap before he grabs Lance’s phone and hands it to him. “You text him.” Hunk placed Lance’s phone in his hand, watching as Lance turns it on. He’s greeted with the time and a very clear photo of- “Oh my god, he’s your lock screen.” It was a photo of Keith and Lance on the couch, clearly, it was only just taken because Keith was in his hoodie, cheeks slightly red as he awkwardly smiled for the camera, his eyes not focused on the camera as he looked at the screen instead. Lance’s arm was around him, pulling him closer so their faces were pressed together, a wider smile on his face as he looked at the screen too, just to make Keith feel better, so he wasn’t the odd one out.

“I couldn’t help it! He didn’t even know how to take a selfie!! HOW COULD I NOT USE THAT PHOTO!!” He does have a fair point. Lance yells at Hunk to go away, ushering him out of the room as he opens Keith’s messages, not before Hunk sees the excessive amount of hearts next to his contact.

* * *

 

 **Lance:** Hey, I had fun today, I hope I didn’t freak u out or anything.

 **Keith:** No, it’s fine. I had fun too, especially with that cheesy bread you showed me.

 **Lance:** Ah yes, Pizza, the human staple food item.

 **Lance:** Recon we could do it again sometime??

 **Keith:** Totally, I’ll probably see you soon.

 **Lance:** u better! If ur not at the beach tomorrow, I’m swimming down there to find u!

 **Keith** : Speaking of swimming, I gotta go home. I’ll text to tomorrow, can’t get the phone wet after all!


	16. Rage, Tears, and New Feelings

“We saw him here, your majesty.” A voice moved past Keith, echoing through the small cave he tucked himself into, each bounce off the walls sending shivers through his body. “I’m afraid he’s not here, it’s possible it was a false sighting. We’ve never heard of a mermaid willingly fraternizing with humans, let alone to the extent that was reported.” Keith pushed himself further back into the wall, hiding in the shadows the cave provides. The water around him was silent, nothing but the quiet swishing of tails that were out of view. The royal guard had tracked him here, someone had seen him talking with everyone and ratted him out. The Galra had impeccable Night vision, moving right now would be a fool's errand.

Zarkon himself had come out of his palace to track Keith down, of course, he was escorted by the royal guard, but he almost always had one of his underlings do this stuff for him; whatever he thought was going on, it was serious. “He’s always been a rotten egg, half-breeds – a mistake, the lot of them!” There was a thunderous cackle and loud swish, his tail flicking through the water, sending waves rippling all around him.

Keith bites his lip and closes his eyes as hard as possible, pushing himself even harder against the wall as he prays that he won’t be caught. Zarkon had stopped mere meters away from Keith, the ripples his tail caused hitting Keith square in the chest each time. If he just turned around and looked in the dark cave behind him… well, you get the idea.

“Sire, I’m afraid he’s not here. I’m afraid that even the younger Kogane wouldn’t be this stupid, not after what happened to his mother.” The words of the soldier washed over Keith like a tsunami, knocking him into the sea below, dark waves crashing down on top of him as he was tossed around in the black depths. His mother? How the hell did they know what happened to her? “God, what happened to her was horrific, wasn’t it? It’s a shame Kogane didn’t tell his son, eh?” Another wave crashed down, knocking the air from his lungs, pushing his gills shut with the pure power it shoved him around with.  Someone knew what happened to his mother, not just that, it was common knowledge within the Siren community.

“Guards, summon Price Lotor to my chambers when he returns, we must have a conversation.” He heard the quiet swishing of tails as Zarkon and the guard retreated away from the shoals, back into deeper water where they were safe from prying eyes. Keith waited a few minutes before slowly poking his head around the edge of the wall, the water was calm and empty. A few schools of fish swim by in the tranquil water, he always felt one with the ocean, but he’s never felt so isolated from the ocean than in this moment.

Him and the water were always on the same wavelength (pun intended) when it was calm, so was he. But today, the water was quietly lapping on the shore, not a single wave in sight – yet he felt like a raging tsunami, violently crashing against anything in his path. His rage was unbridled, taking form through his body as it coursed through his body, pumping with each heartbeat. He jumped out of the water at that moment, his tail quickly shifting into long paws. He jumped out of the water just before all of his scales turned to fur, his anger exploding out of him in the form of fur covering every inch of his shifting body.

His hair grew longer, wrapping around his head, a long black mane growing around his face that was now covered by a thin layer of pale, cream coloured fur. He fell to his hands and knees as arms grew longer and legs grew shorter. He yelled loudly, not in pain but anger, his words coming out as a long roar instead. He was lucky he only approached the surface late at night so there were no humans around to see the black-maned lion walk along the beach. His anger was all-consuming, smothering his usual emotions in a blanket of anger and confusion. Long, razor-sharp teeth grew in his mouth, poking as his mouth naturally parted slightly.

When Lance stepped onto the beach, whistling to himself with his hands in his pockets, he was expecting to see Keith waiting by the water for him, his tail idly swishing in the water as the moonlight reflected on his red scales. Not an angry lion padding his way towards him. At first, Lance’s brain screamed for him to run, something primal kicking in as he Lion bared its teeth in a threatening manner, his nose crinkling up as a low growl escapes from him.

Keith wasn’t himself, his all-consuming anger was burying his mind, his judgement. Lance was about to run away, his mind set completely on the flight end of the spectrum, that was until his eyes met the Lions. In almost all circumstances you should never approach a lion, especially when is very clearly warning you that if you don’t leave it’s going to attack, but this was one of the rare exceptions.

Lance recognized those violet eyes instantly, the ones he always found himself getting lost in, the eyes he’d think of at night when he tossed and turned in his bed. Instead of the usual amber eyes of a lion, they were a very clear and deep purple, the gaze holding something else behind it, almost a sense of acknowledgement. “Keith… buddy?” Lance slowly said, making small steps towards the lion who only growled louder. Everything clicked in place at that moment, the cream fur, the black mane, and the purple eyes. That was Keith. That is Keith.

“It’s me, Lance, I’m right here, just calm down.” Lance makes slow hand gestures, holding his hands up as a sign of friendship before slowly lowering them down to the ground as he crouches like he’s placing something on the floor. Something flickers behind Lion’s eyes as it steps forward, its teeth still bared. A small patch of fur drifts off in the wind that rushes by, a small patch of pale skin underneath it. He was breaking through.

“We can talk about whatever happened, I just need to you listen to my voice. Just listen to me, that’s all you need to do.” Lance spoke in a calming of a tone as he could muster, his hands still held out in front of him, only taking slow and small steps. Keith steps forward, this time a loud whine coming from him as more of his fur starts to fall away, his body shrinking back to his normal size. “There you go, just keep listening to me.” Eventually, Keith is himself again, at least his human self. He’s left on his hands and knees, panting loudly as small sobs slip past his lips, his hands fisting in the sand desperately.

“They knew! They all knew!” Keith finally yelled, his voice coming back to him as desperate tears ran down his face, slipping down to the sand below. Lance’s heart snapped in two, watching Keith desperately cry in front of him just did something to him. As Lance ran up to him he pulled off his jacket, ripping his arms out of the sleeves, Lance kneeled next to Keith and wrapped his jacket around Keith’s bare shoulders, rubbing gentle circles as he did so.

“Ba- Keith.” Now wasn’t the time to let that kind of thing slip. “What’s wrong, what happened?” Keith let out a small hiccup, at first Lance assumed that he was crying out of sadness, but that just wasn’t how Keith was. He was angry. Beyond Angry. His eyes were on fire, his gaze burning anything in his path, which was a stark contrast to the water that was pooling in the corners of his eyes.

“My dad knew, he knew ALL THESE YEARS!!” Keith gripped the jacket around him tightly, pulling at it as he let out a loud yell. “HE KNEW!! He just let me cry and cry, he left me to wonder what happened to my mother!!” Keith felt like he was ready to fight anything in his path, that he needed to destroy something, make something else feel what he felt for years when his mother disappeared – broken. Keith buried his head into Lance's shoulder, freely letting out a broken sob as he pulled him closer, his body craving the warmth he provided. Under any other circumstances, Keith’s heart would be racing from the proximity, but he felt nothing but betrayed.

“Oh… Keith.” Lance pulled Keith closer, gently placing his hand behind Keith’s head as his other wrapped around his waist. Lance didn’t know anything about Keith’s parents, only that they were a sensitive subject and his mother wasn’t around anymore (for reasons Keith wouldn’t explain. Lance pressed his head into Keith’s hair, gently kissing the top of his head like he remembered his mother doing when he cried as a child. It was something intimate, something that showed the depth of his feelings without Keith really understanding the implications behind the small gesture. “I’m so sorry.” Was all Lance could say, nothing seemed right in this situation, all he could do was gently stoke Keith’s hair and wait for this situation to blow over. For the storm to pass.

Lance just pulls Keith into his lap, wrapping his arms around the smaller boys body to pull him against his chest, the quiet sound of his heartbeat instantly calming Keith down. They sit there, in each other's arms under the pale glow of the moonlight as the waves gently lap at the shore, shells and rocks caught in its push and pull. Keith felt connected to the ocean again, the gentle waves echoing the emotions flowing through him. Under the gentle glow of the moon, everything was perfect for a moment, even if it was only for a moment.


	17. The ar-ce-ad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just... uh - Prepare yourself, that's all I'm going to say.

Hell hath no fury like a raging Kogane.

Everyone in the group was quickly learning that you don’t come between Keith and whatever poor object he decided to let his anger out on. Ever. The battle was gruesome and one-sided… the poor plates never even stood a chance. Keith was standing over the fallen bodies of his foes, shards of white porcelain littering the grass in Shiro’s backyard, a chipped bat lying a few meters away.

Keith heaved, his chest rising and falling as the fire in his eyes only burns brighter. “Give me another plate, come on!” He said, holding his hand out for another plate.

“Keith…. You’ve broken them all. Every. Last. One,” Lance slowly said, gesturing to a broken plate that was wedged in a tree… Yes, Keith somehow threw it hard enough to get it stuck in a tree.

“It’s either this or I’ll turn back into a lion! GIVE ME SOMETHING TO BREAK, LANCE!” Keith let out a long string of curses as he threw the glass at a nearby wall, the crystal-clear glass shattering into a million pieces on the brick wall. He broke out in a long string of clicks and chirps, Lance only assuming that he’s cursing in ‘mermaid’.

This would have been a funny sight if it wasn’t utterly heartbreaking. Lance had dragged Keith to Shiro’s house at ass-o’clock in the morning, the body still sobbing quietly under his breath, relaxing all of his weight on the Cuban supporting him. Keith had been taking his anger out on anything and everything he could find, from trees, to glasses, to plates and even the bat he was using to break everything. He was mad, and nothing is going to change that.

His sadness was shoved down, choked and muffed by the anger that quickly fills the empty pit inside of him. Shiro had long gone to bed, leaving Keith with a box of old fragile stuff he was about to get rid of anyway, leaving Lance to watch over the fuming boy.  Keith could feel a different emotion in his gut, however. Something he had never felt before, something that makes his head spin and jellyfish swim in his stomach.

At first Keith was a bit sceptical about breaking Shiro’s stuff, but eventually, he discovered how cathartic it was… and now he can’t stop. It’s a siren thing, something they call ‘blood-fever’, he’s lucky he’s only half Siren otherwise he’d be after blood – he’d want to twist limbs, and break bones.

Lance was lying against the singular tree in the backyard, idly humming to himself as he watched Keith break everything in sight, his heart breaking a little more with each plate Keith shattered. He doesn’t blame him, he’d been lied to his whole life, he was a laughing stock without ever knowing… he was betrayed by his father of all people.

“THAT’S IT!” Lance yelled, jumping off the ground to pick up the half-empty box of glasses and other random knickknacks – which is now noticeably absent of plates. “I’m taking you to the arcade, we’re going to have an amazing night and you’re going to forget all about – you know what I’m not even going to mention it, it officially didn’t even happen,” Lance declared, he forcibly grabs Keith’s arm and drags him out of Shiro’s house, yelling a goodbye only to hear Shiro groan sleepily from his room.

“What’s an ar-ce-ad?” Lance had to pause for a second to breathe deeply through his nose, and pray to whatever greater good that’s above him to give him the strength not to jump Keith’s bones. Because holy mother of lions, that was beyond adorable.

“It’s a place where you can play games, you’ll find out when we get there.” Lance knew of an awesome arcade a few blocks away, it was open twenty-four hours a day, four days a week and it was basically his home when he first moved here. When he saw the purplish red light of the arcade in the distance a smile lit up his face, the black street filling up with life as the distant sound of music started to drift in his direction.

The night was cold, the wind carrying a chill as it whipped past the two boys, their loose jackets waving roughly behind them. Keith was still wearing that stupid red jacket he found, apparently, someone left it on the beach one day and he stole it… and hasn’t stopped wearing it when he’s on land, no matter how many times Lance tried to secretly burn it.

When Lance finally pushes open the arcade doors, he’s hit with a warm blast, music, heat and light alike seeping out into the street around them, ice cold blues being replaced with vibrant purples and reds. Lance holds the door open and gestures inside, biting the ‘ladies first’ quip that was building on his tongue. It just wasn’t the time for mockery, amusing or otherwise.

Lance closed the door behind him and was pleased to see the arcade was mostly empty, aside from a few stray people off to the sides, clearly working on getting high scores on their favourite games. Lance would have made fun of them if he wasn’t one of those people a few years ago. Let’s just say he rocked at Dance Dance Revolution back in his hometown.

“Welcome Keith, to the peak of human culture: The Arcade.” He holds his arms out wide, gesturing to the multi-coloured room, filled to the brim with flashing arcade machines, ranging from shooting games to Tetris. Honestly, it was Heaven. The carpet was probably Lance’s favourite thing, not because it was beautiful but because it was so bad it was good. It was a nauseating dark navy pattern, swirls of every colour you can imagine whirling around on top of the navy carpet. Man, he missed feeling dizzy when looking at the ground.

Heh, there’s still that stain from when Lance kicked a machine in announce and knocked over Pidges green Slushie. Good memories. Keith looks around weirdly, his face clearly expressing his distaste for how bright the entire place was. “It sure is…” Keith trailed off, not really knowing what to say. Honestly, this seems like such a Lance place – Loud and frankly annoying.

“I know it looks a little rough at first, but trust me this place is amazing!” Lance grabbed Keith’s hand and tried to ignore the shocks that burst through him, lightning bolts that zap through him and make his hair stand on edge. “They’ll tone it down soon anyway, Rachel always lowers the lights and music when it’s her shift – honestly I think it’s because she naps, but whatever,” Lance babbled, rambling on and on about the people he knew from here.

They finally stop at a long rectangular table. The table had walls around all of the sides, probably only an inch or two high, the surface was a shiny white plastic that had been polished recently and had symmetrical red lines and circles on both sides of the table. Keith looked up to see a large red sign. ‘Air hockey’

“Okay, for obvious reasons – I’m blue and you’re red. Now, here’s your… whatever it’s called.” Lance slid a red handle over to Keith from the other side of the table, a simple red circle with a long cylinder extruding from the top so he could hold it. “Now, this is a puck. My goal is to hit it into your goal, and the same goes for you with mine.”

Before Keith could even react, he heard a loud clack and a black circle whizzed across the table, sliding into the goal in a split second, the only proof that it even happened being the puck now sat in a tray ready for collection. “See, that’s what you’ve got to do. I won’t count that because it was a demonstration.” Lance bent down so he was eye level with the puck, clearly taking this way too seriously.

Keith quickly grasped the game, understanding what to do as his hand naturally shot around the table as he defended his goal, loud bangs filled the room as the puck hit the walls and the paddles that were tightly gripped in both of their hands. Eventually, the game ended, the scores flashing brightly above them in the red LED lights.

**BLUE: 11 || RED: 10**

“Ugh! Are you serious!” Keith threw down his paddle as he read the score, a loud yell of victory erupting from Lance as he did a victory lap of the arcade, whooping about his victory.

“THEY CALL ME A SHARPSHOOTER FOR A REASON!!” Lance laughed, throwing his arms back as he dropped to his knees, whooping one final time as Keith walked up to him a sighed.

“Fine, I’ll admit you won fair and square, so what else can you do in this… arcade?” Lance jumped up that second, scrounging around in his back pocket for a white card, his name plastered clearly on the front.

“I’m going to show you the glory that is: The prize counter!” Lance waved Keith over to a small corner of the Arcade, a young girl with Fluro pink hair resting behind the glass casing as she blows bubbles in her gum, an annoyed look clear on her face. “Hey, how many tickets have I got backed up?”

The girl sighed loudly and plugged a few numbers into the computer next to her, mumbling out a number before chewing her gum again, clearly annoyed that she was still forced to stand there. “3000.”

“Okay, Keith! Pick anything you want.” Keith looks over the items sitting on shelves or hidden behind display cases, all with small white tags attached to them with their price, most of the ridiculously overpriced. Was this a common thing for Arcades? Keith's eyes landed on a small keychain, a red lion hanging off a silver chain, it’s loud open in a loud roar.

It reminded him of the beach earlier in the day, when he had cried into Lance’s shoulder for hours on end… honestly, he shouldn’t feel so great about that memory. Yeah, he’s got issues he needs to look into. “I – uh – never mind,” Keith said before quickly looking down, it’s a stupid idea.

“Hmm?” Lance hummed, looking down at Keith with an odd expression. “Find something?” Keith looks back at the keychain and nods, slowly looking at the teenage girl in front of him.

“Can I get that please?” He pointed to it under the case. The teen groans something resembling an ‘okay’, opening the case to pull out the keychain, holding it out to Keith to take. He slowly takes it and smiles sheepishly at Lance, clutching it tightly in his closed fist. Lance gives the girl his card and she quickly takes away some of his credits, and throws it back at him harshly, turning away that second.

Keith looked puzzled by something, his face slowing clear discomfort as his eyebrows knitted together, an annoyed pout on his lips. “What’s up?” Lance asked, bending down slightly to meet Keith’s eyes. Before he could even process what was happening, there was a warm pair of lips pressed against his cheek, the feeling was gone as quick as it came. He blinked in shock and slammed a hand against his cheek, his face exploding in a sea of red. His brain completely stopped working, alarm bells going off in his mind.

“I remember seeing that in the movie we watched last week, that’s how humans so gratitude, yes?” A different set of alarms bells went off as his face went even redder, his cheek still tingling as he stood there like an idiot, his hand still pressed against his cheek.

“I – Yeah, that’s e-exactly what Humans do…” Yep, not going to explain that right now. Plus, it's not like he's complaining.

Lance pushed the moment behind him, knowing full well that the feeling was going to be stuck on repeat in his mind for the next… forever. They eventually stopped by a particular arcade machine, Keith’s eyes lighting up as he stepped closer to it.  Fish swam around on the screen, adorable cartoons of sea life interacting around the screen. No surprises there.

“I’m going to the bathroom, I’ll be right back,” Lance said before promptly walking away. Keith, however, didn’t hear a thing or even see Lance leave as the colours danced on the screen in front of him, light and dark blues melding together like the ocean he was oh so familiar with.

Keith dug into his pockets, pulling out his phone and placing it on the machine so he could dig deeper, he eventually pulls out a single gold coin. He slowly slides in the coin and almost jumps when the screen changes, telling him to pick up the black gun tucked into a side port.

When he picked up the gun the message disappeared in an instant, the camera shooting out of the water and the screen focused back on the sky. The countdown started on the screen and Keith readied himself, the familiar rush of adrenaline already coursing through him.

He wrapped his finger around the plastic trigger, sighing deeply as the countdown finally reached zero, a loud alarm playing through the speakers. A series of coloured balloons floated across the screen, Keith focused in and tried to hit them all – he quickly learnt that he’s a terrible shot.

Eventually, he finishes with a somewhat average score, a long stream of tickets spilling out from the slot just under where he put in coin in. Maybe he could save up and get something for Lance? Speaking of Lance; Keith turned around to go brag about his newfound tickets, only to be greeted by an empty arcade and a small folded up sheet of paper on the machine next to his.

_‘You looked super engrossed in your game that I didn’t want to disturb you. I went down to the beach, meet me there when you’re ready._

_-    Lance’_

Oh, right. They had been in the arcade for a while. Keith waved goodbye to the cashier and exited the arcade, the small keychain gripped tightly in his hands as he spun it around, smiling as it shined in the moonlight up above him. He had no idea where he was in the city, but he could still hear the distant sound of the ocean like it was calling to him. Keith picked up to a light jog, picking up in pace as he tried to get to the beach faster. He wonders what could have prompted Lance to go to the beach of all places, he couldn’t wait though, that for sure.

Across the city a phone buzzes on an arcade machine, text messages appearing on the screen frantically as it vibrates on the plastic of the machine. Lance only a few meters away frantically calling the now missing mermaid, the staff of the Arcade having no idea where he went, as most of them were just tied teens who weren’t ever playing full attention. The phone falls off the machine eventually, hitting the ground with a loud crack as the screen shatters, the messages becoming distorted before the screen eventually powers off. The phone is broken.

The beach is empty, sand sprayed everywhere from a clear struggle, two clear sets of footprints in the sand leading to a trail into the water, something having been dragged into it. In the moonlight something shines faintly, a small keychain buried under the sand, abandoned as water starts to lap closer and closer to it. The footprints are slowly washed away as the water erases them from existence, the signs of struggle gone like it never even happened. The beach pristine once again.


	18. A cage under the sea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, wow! The reaction to the last chapter was just so overwhelming! Thank you all so much!  
> I read every single comment you guys leave and they're all just so nice!!  
> I hope you enjoy this chapter, and if you'd like feel free to leave a comment, I don't bite.

Keith seemed to have an apparent skill for dropping off the face of the earth, without so much as a goodbye. Seriously, Lance went to the bathroom for like three minutes and then Keith just is gone, and he wouldn’t pick up his phone either. He really should have put a bell on that damned Mermaid.

It’s been over two days since Keith disappeared from the arcade, and Lance was still to hear from him. Which is odd. The last time Keith went over a day without contact he was in serious trouble, so you can’t really blame him for freaking out. He got Pidge to look over the security footage from the Arcade and Keith picked up a piece of paper, smiled and then left, all before Lance left the bathroom.

The video was too blurry to see what was on the note, just a bunch of illegible scribbles in a handwriting that none of them recognised. Pidge zoomed in as far as she could and traced over the writing, they could barely make out one word: _‘Beach’. Well, shit_

“Lance?! WHAT ARE YOU- and he’s gone,” Pidge sighed and closed her laptop, thanking the teens at the counter as she booked it out of the arcade as she tried to keep the Cuban in his line of sight. She saw the flicker of a faded army green jacket around the corner of the block, Lance clearly sprinting down the street. “I need new friends,” She said before running after the boy, gripping her laptop tightly as she jogged down the street – cursing her short legs as she did so.

“KEITH?!” Lance screamed when he reached the beach, desperately looking around at the empty strip of sand. Come on! There was nothing, no sign of him, it was like he never existed. The small crack in the cliff where he stored is clothes, phone and other stuff he needed when he was on land was gone. The chunk of rock where he had carved their names had been chipped away with brute force, a large chunk of the rock just flat-out missing.

Jesus Christ, something was really wrong. Lance took a step back in shock, his hands falling over his mouth as he gasped. The back of his heel dug into something sharp and cold, the object pushing into his flesh without actually piercing it. He hissed loudly and grabbed his foot, hopping backwards away from the spot of sand, a small silver piece of metal shining through the white sand. Lance bent down as his finger wrapped around a small metal hoop, he pulled it out of the sand, a keychain hanging delicately off his finger.

Oh god. It was Keith’s keychain, the red lion that Lance won for him yesterday. There was an unmistakable red speck on the back of the silver keychain, dried blood. Lance wouldn’t describe himself as an angry person, he’s usually pretty level-headed and upbeat – but someone is going to get their asses handed to them on a silver platter.

“Are you Lance?” A small head poked out of the water a few meters away from his, dark, midnight hair hanging over her face, her pale blue skin reflecting the water below her as she looked up at Lance. She had dark purple markings all along her shoulders and cheeks, closely mirroring Keith’s.

“Yeah? What’s it to you?” Honestly, seeing mermaids wasn’t that much of a shock for him anymore – I probably shouldn’t be, but it is nonetheless.

“Ah, so you must be the boy Keith wants to have-” She cut off into a series of chirps, making vague motions with her hands. “- I must say I didn’t expect he’d choose you… but who I am I judge. The fin wants what the fin wants,” The blue-skinned girl said with a shrug.

“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! You know Keith?!” He’d never admit it out loud, but Lance could feel hope bubbling up in his gut.

“I know of him, everyone down in the ocean does. The orphan boy. I recognised him last night, only after I heard him screaming for a _‘Lance’_ … I naturally assumed it was someone he’s close to, and you did just scream out for him in a similar fashion… so you know, I put two and two together.” Lance tried to ignore how his heart caught in his throat as she spoke, Keith screamed for him. He was too busy freaking out at some arcade to help him as he fought off attackers by himself. **_Keith screamed for him._**

 “Oh god…” Lance slowly whispered, “He must be so scared.” Lance could see it, Keith curled up in a dark and mouldy cage, his tail tucked up to his cheek as he weakly sobs, whispering out for Lance to come and save him. He’d probably be crying, his pale skin dirtied by the pale green water that surrounded him, filling his gills as he coughed loudly. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“WHY DON’T YOU SAY THAT TO MY FACE, LOTOR?! IF THESE BARS WEREN’T IN THE WAY I’D WIPE THAT SMILE RIGHT OFF YOUR FACE!!” Keith shoots his hand between the gaps in the bar, desperately clawing at the Siren who was just out of reach, the bars digging violently into his shoulder. The entire room was marble, a golden lounging couch with red cushions was sitting in the corner of the room, something Keith recognised as a human item. The royal family must have stolen it from a shipwreck.

There was a bed in the other corner, a simple coral bed that he was used to at home, small sponge pillows and a seaweed blanket. God, if the fact that this is a nice place only adds to how much Keith hated it there. There was a small room off the to the side that allowed for privacy, a wall protecting it from the open view that the bars gave anyone walking by.

Lotor made it clear that he was only holding Keith here for his own good, but it doesn’t mean that Keith hated it any less. It was clear the cells were regularly clean, the light shone through open windows in the hall outside of each cell, and each room was spacious. It was clearly a block for the more ‘important’ prisoners. But they were prisoners nonetheless.

“I tried to protect you, Keith, but Zarkon found out about your little… escapades. It was either you’re locked up here to ensure that you don’t expose off all underwater life as we know it, or we kill every person you’ve had contact with.” Lotor paused as looked over at Keith with an annoyed expression. “I would have assumed this course of action would have been the preferred one but, I can always set you free.”

Keith growled lowly as the small device strapped to the end of his tail, just above the spine of the tail. The small blades grazed across the delicate flesh of his scales. If it detected major movement (which is what happened during shape-shifting), it’d let off a loud alarm and the blades would shoot out and stab into his tail, rendering him paralysed. Keith didn’t want to admit it, but he really was screwed.

“You’re a sadist!” Keith hissed as his canine teeth elongated in his mouth, something natural that happened when he angered, his fins flaring to make him look as big and threatening as possible.

“And you’re a guppy who swam too far from the safety of the shoals,” Lotor spat back, “Honestly, you should be thanking me, I saved your precious mates life.” Keith’s breath hitched when he said those words, the idea of ‘dating’ wasn’t common in mer-life, the mermaid equivalent of a boyfriend was a mate, someone who you were bound to for life.

“Go poke a shark, Lotor,” Keith seethed and swam into the smaller private room, leaning against the wall as the shadows hid him from view. He wanted nothing more than to fight everything that moved, yet he was trapped in a cage like a helpless guppy. He sighed deeply as his lip quivered, his tail giving out under him as he slid down the wall. “I hate this place,” He whispered in a broken tone, his head resting against the cold wall behind him.

Across the ocean and back on land, Lance was sitting down on the shore, talking with Acxa. He was slowly scooching closer to the water where the mermaid sat, her elbows resting on the rock in front of her.“Did you see what happened to him?” He said, secretly crossing his fingers in hope.

“Yes.” She answered slowly. When she saw his face pick up she had to interrupt him, holding her webbed hand out to shush him. “Look, I don’t know where he was taken, or who took him, but I’ll tell you everything I know.” That wasn’t great, but neither was this whole situation. Lance couldn’t expect all of his issues to be solved my one mermaid who he just met, that’s just not how the world works.

“Please, I lov-” His mouth clamped shut as his eyes widened, his hands quickly falling over his mouth, his fingers digging into his cheeks. He didn’t even mean to say that, all he wanted to ask was if she could tell him everything she knew, but the words just slipped out, his subconscious taking control for a moment.

Did he really love Keith? As more than just a close friend, sure he couldn’t deny that he had thought about the possibility of them being more than just friends, but– actually, he doesn’t even have anything to follow that up with. He had spent far too long imagining how he’d make a relationship with Keith work, considering the whole… different species thing.

His mind flickered back to last week, the both of them silently paddling together in the water, Keith’s tail often wrapping around one of his legs, a fin or two twitching against his arms as Keith would swim by. The sun was setting in the distance as they just lied together. Nothing but the two of them and the world.

“Come on Keith! Try it!” Lance could hear himself laughing, the memory of last week filling his mind. He was lying across the sand, holding a small chilli pepper in his hand, his fingers pinching the stem as he waved it in front of Keith.

“No way! Last time you brought me something it was disgusting!” Keith was referring to the lemon incident from a week beforehand. Lance had given Keith a lemon and claimed that it was a really nice cake, Keith wasn’t too pleased after he took a massive bite. But, it was worth it, his expression was adorable. His face puckered as he knit his eyes together, much like a cat that had been sprayed with water.

“Come on! I’ll have one too!” Lance pulled a small strawberry out of his pocket and was forced to bite back a laugh. “See, mine is bigger too, you can trust me.” No, Keith really couldn’t. See to an untrained eye, strawberries and chillies looked reasonably similar – in the way that they were both red with a green stem. And that was enough to fool Keith.

“Ugh! Fine!” Keith stole the chilli and held it in front of him for a minute, his fins twitching in annoyance as he glared at it. He brought it to his lips and bit down, for a second everything was fine as he chewed, and then disaster struck. “OH MY GOD!! WHY DOES IT BURN?! LANCE?! WHAT THE FU-“ Keith dove underwater, his tail flicking violently in the air. He emerged to spit out water, he resembled something of a weird fountain as he proceeded to wash out his mouth.

It was impossible to miss, once Keith’s mouth stopped burning, he broke out his laughter too, the blush on his face no longer from the burning sensation.  Lance laughed so hard that day that he was sore the next day, his ribs aching with every movement – he couldn’t bring himself to regret it though.

Oh shit, Lance was in love with Keith.


	19. What happened that night

“Just, start from the start,” Lance said as he shuffled closer to the blue-skinned mermaid. “Don’t leave out anything.” The sun was just starting to set, it was casting an orange glow over the water as it dove deeper and deeper down past the horizon. It was almost mocking him, saying _‘Oh, look down I can dive into the water, but you can’t!’_. Yep, Lance was officially imaging the sun mocking him, either he was going crazy or Keith drugged him with some weird tail magic and he’s been tripping balls this entire time.

“Well,” She started, diving into the story. And just as promised; she didn’t leave a single detail out.

\---

Axca was swimming towards the surface last at night. She had just snuck away from her duties as a royal guard and decided that a nice moonlit nap was in order. She had done this a million times before and wasn’t about to start worrying now, she’d always wake up before anyone noticed she was gone and she’d be back guarding the palace before anyone even caught on. It was simple.

Like clockwork she slowly poked her head above the water, her eyes scanning the empty beach for any signs of life. It was completely empty, practically lifeless and waves rolled in and out of the shore.

\---

“Can you hurry up!? I’ve got a sexy ass fish waiting for me to save him!” Lance groaned, partially because the story was taking forever, and partially because he just said, ‘sexy ass fish’. Does this make him a furry? Does that even apply to fish? Jesus when did his life spiral like this.

“Shush! I’m setting the scene, either listen to the story my way, or don’t listen to it at all!” That shut Lance up quick, the Cuban boy still mumbling about furries under his breath.

\---

_**ANYWAY** _

Acxa jumped out of the water, lying down on a nearby rock under the pale glow of the moonlight. It was a nice night, almost completely cloudless as the moon shone fully down onto the water, the stars in the sky shining brightly below as they reflected against the water. She sat and watched as the stars disappeared in ripples when she moved her tail, the sparks fading in and out of existence as she moved.

She heard a distant splash behind her, she spun around to see another mermaid jump out of the water and onto the beach. She watched as its tail split in two, silver and purple scales dissolving into brown skin. It clicked that moment that she was watching a siren, their shapeshifting abilities were known throughout the land – it’s what makes them such powerful leaders after all.

She couldn’t help but wonder what brought a siren to the surface, she knew just as well as anyone that travelling to the surface was banned, you could sunbake on rocks, but you were never permitted on the shore. If you stepped foot (tail?) onto the sand, you could be jailed. She was intrigued, to say the least. That only grew into a downright demand for answers when she sees the tell-tale glowing patterns on the figure's cheeks. The royal family. Why the hell would someone of the royal family need to be on the shore. Why would they risk running into humans?

The marks quickly faded as the figure became more and more human, the person quickly changing into human clothes as they changed. Eventually, long silver hair was tied up into a bun, giving the appearance of short hair, their clothes were baggy; which included one faded navy green jacket. It was new, she could tell, the jacket didn’t have a single mark or scratch on it, it was stiff and clearly hadn’t been worn until today.

Acxa slid off the rock and back into the water, her head only just poking out so she could watch without being spotted. It was times like these where she was grateful her skin was blue and blended in so easily at night.

“Lance?!” A voice called out in the distance, a quietly thudding of running feet growing louder and louder. She poked her head out of the water to get a better look, a small human was running down the beach towards the royal Siren – apparently named Lance?

\---

“But I’m Lance,” Lance interrupted yet again, the aura of mystery that Acxa was so painstakingly trying to build falling around her.

“I know that now, dipshit!” She yelled, her ears twitching in an annoyed fashion. Humans are annoying, why anyone would ever choose to conversate with them? She’ll never know. “But at the _time_ , I assumed he was the Lance that the small human was talking about.”

She cleared her throat and started again, trying to remember where she left off. Right.

\---

“Lance?!” The voice yelled the small black-haired human ran down the beach with a smile. Sand was spraying behind the boy as he continued to run towards the siren, a sickly sweet smirk on the sirens face as he waited for Keith to get closer. The figure had yet to turn around, his smile hidden from view at the boy grew closer and closer.

Acxa recognised him at that moment, the slender build, pale skin and untamed mop of hair mirroring a person she knew perfectly. Well, ‘knew’, she had never actually met the guy, she just consistently heard rumours about him.

At first, she assumed it was some kind of secret love affair, a forbidden romance where the two could only meet on the surface – but things were proven to be completely different when the situation went pear-shaped. Everything went wrong faster than she could snap her fingers.

“Hey Lance, I got your no…..te,” the boy trailed off as the figure suddenly turned to him, his eyes widening like a deer caught in headlights, his voice quivering as the rest of his sentence came out as a whisper. She could see the fear in the boy’s eyes, the realisation of the situation he had got himself into washing across his expression.

Keith spun around to run, preparing to sprint down the beach; his only hope is that he was more adept on land than Lotor after all of this time. He only got two steps away before a strong hand grabbed the back of his jacket and pulled him back, a pained whine ripped from the boy as he’s thrown against the sand with a loud thud.

He laid on his back for a few moments as he tried to regain the air that was forcibly pushed from his lungs. He scrambled off of his back, crawling away as he tried to stumble back to his feet. A strong kick was connected to the side of his torso, pushing into his ribs as he was kicked back to the sand; a loud scream was ripped from him this time.

He was on his side, clutching his torso as he still tried to move away, the siren towering over him with a foot pressed harshly against his chest – pinning him to the sand. “HELP! SOMEBO-” Keith tried to scream before they were muffled by a strong hand covering his mouth.

Lotor was kneeling in front of him, one hand holding his head in the sand while the other covered his mouth, muffled whines still slipping through as he squirmed and fought against his grip. There was a loud crack and more muffled screams as his left arm was pushed harshly against his back, the bone poking out at an odd angle.

Something small and silver slipped out of his hand as it laid broken and limp against his back, his entire body still pinned against the sand grains that were digging into his skin. “I warned you, Keith,” Lotor finally seethed, as he pushed Keith into the sand even harsher.

“LANCE!” Keith took that moment to scream for help again, Lotor quickly clamping his hand back around the boy's mouth yet again.

“I warned you about what would happen if you kept associating with the land dweller,” Keith screamed through Lotor’s fingers as his broken arm was wedged between his back and the sand below him. “You forced me to do this,” Lotor said as he finally heaved Keith off of the ground, the body lying limp in his arms. Keith was too tired to fight any more, his entire body burned with pain and his arm was beyond broken.

Acxa could see Keith’s human features start to fade away as he slipped in and out of consciousness, his red scales growing back on his tail at an alarming rate, his body unable to keep up the transformation. Lotor picked Keith up bridal style, a gesture that would have been considered romantic or caring if one had not seen what transpired mere moments ago.

“I’m taking you back to where it’s safe. One day you’ll appreciate what my kingdom, what I, have done for you. We’ve risked everything to bring you out of the clutches of mankind, once you’ve woken up from their spell you’ll thank us,” Lotor rambled as he stepped back into the water, his tail growing back as he carried Keith carefully in his arms. It was an abrupt change, he went from breaking Keith’s bones to carefully carrying him through the water, taking extra care of the bone that he broke.

“I’ll never thank you.” With that Keith lost consciousness, going completely limp in his arms as his tail flopped over the side of Lotor’s arm, his head dangling backwards with his eyes shut and mouth open. She watched as the two swam into the depths of the sea, the dim light that the moon provided only barely shining against the red and purple scales that disappeared into the darkness down below.


	20. Best laid plans?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, little notification thing.  
> From here on out the story is going to be in **present** tense, since I started this story I've gradually transitioned from past to present, and I prefer this a lot more!! I guess you could imagine everything leading up until this chapter has been a flashback kind of thing???  
>  Anyway, I just wanted to tell you guys that incase the change threw you off or something (if you read any of my other stuff you'd probably already know I write in present tense now anyway).  
> It's a minor change, but it's a change nonetheless.

Lance has never really been that great at paying attention, no matter what the situation he always finds himself zoning out. It’s not his fault, his mind just always seems to wander off, even if it’s an important conversation that he _really_ should be listening to. He can’t even count the number of time’s that Pidge has nearly broken her laptop over his head because he hasn’t been listening. So yeah, Lance isn’t good at listening.

 “I’m sorry, you want me to what?” Case and point, this conversation right now. He’s been zoning out, about zoning out. It’s fascinating really.

“Lance, it’s simple! You hold the sponge to your mouth.” Acxa brings the sponge to her mouth to demonstrate. “And It’ll give you the oxygen you need,” She says before handing over the green sponge. He still doesn’t really know what’s going on, but he can probably just bullshit his way through this. It’s what he did in all of his exams at least.

“Thank you, Acxa.”

“Yeah, whatever. Just keep up your end of the deal.” Right, his end of the deal. Lance has to search for some chick named ‘Narti’. Apparently, she used to work in the royal guard with Acxa and a few other people before she went missing; and Acxa thinks that Lotor has something to do with it. Considering that Lotor has already proven that he’s not above kidnapping someone for personal gain, it’s honestly not that farfetched of a theory. 

No one is really sure where Keith disappeared to though. Acxa said that she’s asked around a few days ago and no one knew anything… like anything. Most people know Keith as ‘the orphan boy’ or ‘the hot one’ or even ‘Kevin’. Keith’s just as elusive underwater as is he above it. Most people she talked to said that they’ve only talked to him once or twice, and those interactions have always just been obligatory small talk.

is Lance even ready to do this? This is beyond risky, it’s even worse because he’s going alone. He can’t just waltz up to someone and say, “Hey! I’m going to rescue this mermaid this a really bad haircut. Don’t worry, he’s cute so it makes up for it. Yeah, there is a sea full of humanoid fish, please don’t tell anyone.” No. That’s just not how the world works.

He wanted to tell Hunk, but he didn’t want to worry anyone. Everyone is already worried enough about what happened to Keith (He doesn’t even have the heart to tell them that), and the last thing he wants is for them to be worrying about him. If Allura found out where Lance was going, she’d rip him from limb to limb, she’d then tie him to the nearest chair and end up going herself. This all happened because of him, and he’ll be damned if anyone gets hurt because of it.

Lance chokes out a small laugh. If Keith was here he’d be scolding him about blaming himself for something that was completely out of control. It wasn’t his fault that Keith saved him all those months ago, or that Keith grew closer to him, or that Lotor found out, or even that Lotor kidnapped him. He may have been involved, but it was never his fault.

As horrible as things seem right now – and they really are bad… Lance can’t really seem to regret it. Almost drowning was traumatic, but he met Keith. He got show Keith human culture, laugh as he fumbled his way through memes and slang terms… and even share a special moment or two. Keith quickly became an integral part of their friendship group, and even if he’s only been with them a few months… no one can really remember what it was like without him.

Lance subconsciously grabs the metal keychain that’s tied around his wrist, the chain fashioned messily into a bracelet as it dangles loosely off of his wrist. He silently fiddles with it as he watches Acxa, his voice filling his thoughts as he slowly drifts back into the conversation.

 “You’re going in alone, there’s no way in _**hell** _ I’m risking getting caught by Lotor,” Acxa says with an astute nod. “Just put on your fin shoes and stay out of sight, if anyone sees your legs you’ll be busted. So, stay in the seaweed patches, and behind coral trees.”

Acxa has been stationed at the prison countless times and therefore knows the entire place like the webbing on her hands. The plan for when he gets there is simple, in every cell is a large barred window so he simply needs to swim up and look through each window, all while staying out of sight of course. It’s easy enough, well, as easy as rescuing your fish friend from an underwater prison can be.

He doesn’t really know what he’s going to do when he actually spots Keith, so he’s just gotta hope that he’s good at thinking on his feet. The only thing he really knows about mermaid life is that it’s the antithesis of human life. Almost nothing is the same below water as it is above, meaning that Lance won’t be able to plan an escape for Keith until he can see what he’s up against.

Lance gives her a small nod and pulls the green sponge up to his mouth. He slowly lowers himself into the water until he’s completely submerged, one hand slowly treading water while the other holds the sponge to his face. His cheeks puff out as he waits for the sponge to start producing oxygen. He’s too scared to start breathing while he can still feel the familiar feeling of water rushing past his lips. So, he waits, and waits… and waits.

His lungs slowly start to burn, the presence of water around him seeming all too overwhelming. He can feel a tightness in his chest as he burns through his oxygen, the sponge still pressed against his face. He pushes off the sand floor with a strong kick and gasps loudly, ripping the sponge away from his face. “Is it possible for a sponge to break?” He asks between loud pants, his face flushed a bright red.

“I mean, it’s possible it doesn’t react to human DNA… I assumed that our species were similar enough, but I guess not. Please pass the-” Acxa starts chirping and squeaking as she makes squeezing motions with her hand, gesturing for Lance to give her the sponge. After all of this time and the countless moments in which Keith has stubbed his toe and started loudly squeaking; he still has no idea what any of the chirps mean. There’s a different kind of pain in his chest this time, something akin to someone pulling on his heart as his mind flickers back to the mermaid and his stupid red freckles. Stupid Keith with his stupid hair and stupid face. God, the nerve.

Acxa dives underwater, quickly flicking her tail in a follow me motion – see, He knows some things about mermaid culture. He watches as Acxa bites down on the sponge, her sharpened teeth digging in as she rips off a chunk. She chews (ew) for a second and blows what appears to be a kiss at Lance. She extends her hand and continues to exhale, a large air bubble forming; much like she’s blowing bubble-gum.

She spits out the now wilted and brown sponge with a disgusted expression. She grabs the bubble with her hands, the air surprisingly moulding around her hands rather than popping… but then again bubbles can’t really pop underwater… yeah, he probably shouldn’t bother getting into the science of that right not. She swims over to Lance with the bubble in hand, gently sliding it over his head. It’s a weird feeling, the bubble is almost tight as it slides over his head, but he can instantly feel the water starting to move away from his face, residual drops sliding down his face until they drop out of the bubble.

“Ugh, gross. I’ve never actually had to extract the air myself,” She says, sticking out her tongue as she looks at Lance. “Look, as much as I _love_ looking after you... time is short. Go find him, I’m positive he’s waiting.”  Wow, who knew sarcasm is still so prevalent under the sea. Acxa turns to leave, a somewhat kind smile on her lips. She’ll never admit it, but she’s rather fond of Lance. In the short time, she’s known him – a few days to be precise – he’s already shown himself to be someone who’s loyal to the very end. That’s something that you don’t see that much under the ocean.

She watches as Lance takes off in the water, his legs kicking wildly as he shoots through the water, for a land dweller; he can sure as hell swim. She watches him disappear into the seaweed forest below, the long strips of seaweed reaching as high as tall trees. It’s the perfect cover, mermaids rarely go in out of fear of their tails getting tangled… but a human? Well, it’s simple to navigate for them.

In a small flash of blue the fin shoes of the human disappear out of sight, Lance diving deep into the forest without a second of caution

She can’t help but wonder if all humans are like Lance; if they’re all kind souls with nurturing hearts. The kind of people who care for one another without a desire for some kind of reward. If that’s the case, she can see why Keith was so determined to stay with them, why he so quickly fell in love with their world. On the surface humans seem to mate for love instead of efficiently, some couples mate without ever reproducing – hell, some can’t even reproduce.

It’s alien, yet intriguing all the same. The idea of copulation for reasons other than producing the next generation is so foreign to merfolk, she’s not surprised that Keith is someone that find something so odd desirable. Instead of settling down with a nice mermaid and raising a family, he’s courted a human boy.

Instead of spending months carefully trailing after a mermaid he deems desirable, he’s spent months on the surface… trailing after human, knowing full well that he’s putting himself in danger by doing so. He found companionship in a hoard of humans rather than his own kind. If he had befriended or courted other mermaids, she could guarantee that they wouldn’t go this far to save him. Yet these creatures are.

Lance has nothing to gain if Keith keeps his life, yet the human boy is risking his life to save Keith. It’s remarkable. Is it possible that Lance will gain something else if Keith remains alive? Keith seems to have nothing to offer… no clams, shells, starfish or pearls; yet Lance clearly see’s something worth saving.

Acxa smiles and shakes her head, a small huff of laughter slipping past her lips. Good luck to them. They’ll sure as hell need it.


	21. A Seaweed Forest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry for the wait on this, but the chapter is here!!  
> I know where I'm going with the next few, so don't worry about waiting for much longer! Hope you enjoy.
> 
> ALSO, SEASON SIX SO COMING OUT SO SOON, I'M HYPED

Keith traces his fingers over the tiles on the floor, carefully shifting around the sand that’s gathered around him. The grains push into the webbing between his fingers ever so slightly as he carefully draws out line after line, his eyes following his fingers.

God, he’s so bored. He’s sitting on the floor of the cell, his tail tucked up to his chest as he rests his head on it, one had wrapped around his tail while the other traces through the sand. “Fuck this place,” He mumbles under his breath, his cheek pressed up roughly against his scales as he continues to doodle in the sand. He sketches out landscapes, tree-covered hills, skies filled with clouds, the ocean lapping at the shore. Everything he can remember from the surface.

The light that floods in from the hallway outside is blocked out as his cell is shrouded in darkness, he doesn’t look up from his drawing, “Go away, Lotor,” He says, sketching in the delicate leaves on his palm trees.

“Can’t you just eat something?” Lotor asks, sliding the silver tray through the gap at the bottom of the cell wall. He’s met with nothing but silence as Keith moves onto the clouds in the sky, carefully drawing the patterns he remembers seeing with Lance. Didn’t Lance say one looked like an Elephant?

Wait… what does an elephant look like?

“Keith, come on. You can’t just go on a hunger strike,” Lotor sighs as he leans against the cell wall, his tail flicking irritably.

“Watch me,” Keith snaps, still refusing to meet his eyes.

“Hark, it speaks.” Lotor pushes the silver tray further into his cell, everything disappearing as the sand flies up into the air. The tray slides to a stop at his tail, the food jostling to a stop. Keith can’t even lie, he’s starving, and the chefs here can make some damn good food. He looks at the clams on his plate, the residual warmth from the lava vents radiating off the tray. Man, what he wouldn’t give to be able to cook food using those bad boys.

Keith shifts about, turning to face away from the cell wall, his ears drooping to cover the lower parts of his jaw. His tail remains tucked up to his chest, the ends of his tail fanning out in front of him.

“Seriously!? The silent treatment? God, you’re such a guppy sometimes!” Lotor yells, punching the cell in frustration, the metal warping under his touch. Keith flinches, pulling his tail closer to his chest as he stares down at the ground. He’ll never admit it, but he really is terrified of Lotor. There’s a massive dent in one of the bars just by the lock, the rusted metal could probably break off with a few good kicks.

Keith glances down at his tail, it’s not really built for kicking… and punching it would probably bust up his hands. The small black device is still strapped to his tail, the blades nicking his tail every so often when he moves. He can’t transform into a human either, he’d drown and simultaneously get stabbed by the device.

Keith chuckles under his breath, a few bubbles floating up to the roof high above him. He knows exactly one person with legs who’d be determined enough to try and kick down a jail door. Though, Lance isn’t stupid enough to try and break Keith out of jail. No, he’d have to know how bad of an idea it is to try and break Keith out of a jail that he doesn’t even know exists, that's full of sirens, and surrounded by water which can easily drown him.

* * *

 

Light breaks through from the surface, scattering in breathtaking arrows of sunlight that illuminates the otherwise overwhelmingly blue landscape. Most people would call it beautiful, and it really is. But, Lance currently isn't one of those people. “Why does everything look the exact same!!” Lance yells, preparing to beat his head on the nearest coral tree. On Earth, it’s easy to make your way around, because nature always looks so different… but under water, everything is the exact same. He can’t use the stars to help guide him, because all he can see forever is water.

Once he’s saved Keith’s sorry tail, he’s going to be as far away from the ocean for as long as humanly possible. He pushes aside the seaweed, trying his best to ignore how slimy it is as it brushes against his legs and shoulders; the bubble around his head thankfully protecting his face. 

No wonder Keith was so itching to get out of this place, why he’d sunbake every other day. The ocean is just plain depressing. It’s quiet, cold and lonely. The mermaids he’s seen so far – thankfully haven’t seen him yet – have all been keeping to themselves, working their nine to five job before retiring to their clay ‘houses’ (they’re more caves with windows if anything). There’s no socialisation, at least not much of it. The teens giggle and bicker around rock formations, and guppies swim around behind their parents… but that’s mostly it. No clubs, bars, parks. Nothing

Lance always imagined life underwater to be mostly the same as life above it. Maybe there’d be a few differences, but they’d have mostly the same ideas… but everything was so alien. The culture was the antithesis of what he thought it would be. It actually perfectly explains why Keith is the way he is, the boy grew up in a culture that’s basically work over everything. It’s not too bad though, at least the mermaids don’t know what they’re missing. Plus, dolphins are pretty cool.

Lance pushes away a final row of seaweed, his eyes adjusting to seeing something that isn’t slime covered, navy green, gross, seaweed. There’s a massive clearing as he escapes the seaweed forest, nothing but sand hills for miles. A few hundred meters away sits a massive building, its made of… god knows what actually. It’s white with a greenish tint, the walls are chipped and cracked at the corners, the water slowly eroding away at the structure. Lance watches as a few guard’s patrol around the building, spear in hand.

Lance feels a small piece of seaweed brush against his ankle, wrapping around in as the water shifts around him, waves crashing down above him. He quirks an eyebrow and rips out a piece of seaweed, running it through his hands experimentally. He pulls slowly, watching as it stretches, but doesn’t rip. He rips out a few more pieces, braiding them together into a stronger rope. Yep, this is about to get really kinky.

He wraps the weed around his hand, slowly swimming out from the safety of the seaweed patch, his legs kicking slowly behind him, his arms behind him. He approaches a mermaid from behind, and says, “I’m sorry, it’s nothing personal.” With that he jams the rope between her teeth, using it as leverage to drag her into the forest.

“MPPFH!!” The girl screams, flailing harder as he pushes her against the sand, tying her hands around her tail. Her muffled screaming only grows when she sees his legs.

“I’m not going to hurt you, I just need to get into the prison. You took someone I care about, once I’ve got him, I’m leaving,” He explains, trying to calm the hysterical girl down. Her eyes a burning with nothing but fear as she pulls against her restraints, the seaweed remain too thick for her to break through. “I really am sorry, I just…. He means a lot to me,” He says with a nervous smile, the tension clear in the water between them.

Within a few minutes, there’s a stack of five mermaids, all piled up next to each other. “Man, I’m a massive jerk today... Look, blame Lotor.” The mermaids perk up at that name, momentarily meeting his eyes. “He kidnapped my friend, all I’m doing is rescuing him. I’m not going to hurt anyone, or steal anything.”

The merman with short blond hair gives him a look.

“Okay, _technically_ I’m stealing the guy that I’m rescuing, but Lotor stole him first… So, like, it cancels itself out?” He’s trying to convince himself more than anything. One of the other mermaids shifts awkwardly, looking at him as she moves her head around, mumbling. This is probably a horrible idea, but the least he can do after tying her up is hear her out. He pulls the seaweed away from her mouth. She thankfully doesn't immediately scream.

“Ugh, gross. I forgot how bad seaweed tastes.” She sticks out her tongue, it’s purple… which is rather concerning actually. Is Keith’s tongue purple? Surely he’d notice something like that, right? “You’re after that Kogane kid, right?”

“How’d you know?” Lance asks, slightly shocked with how prolific Keith seems to be underwater, especially considering how quiet the guy is, and how much he seems to despise the ocean. At least enough to actively spend his time on land. Lance pauses for a second. He doesn’t even know why Keith seems to hate the ocean. He’s never outright said it, but he’s always seemed reluctant to go back to it. Keith doesn’t seem to hate other mermaids – he’s never seemed crazy about them– but, he’s never complained. So, then why does he spend all of his time on land?

 _You_ , a voice echoes in the back of his head, a quiet whisper just underneath everything else. The thought goes unnoticed, his subconscious filtering it out, because Keith? Spending time on land for him? Lance? Preposterous. He’ll be the first to admit that he has it bad for Keith, but he can’t picture his feelings being reciprocated. He shakes off the thoughts, focusing back in on the mermaid in front of him

“Lotor put him in the best cell we have, it confused me at first until I realised it’s also the most heavily guarded. He’s the only one locked up without an actual criminal record, it’s always confused me why he’s in there,” She says calmly, clearly not too bothered about being tied up anymore. “But, uh… looking at how determined you are, I can see why he’s being so heavily guarded.” She flicks her tail up, gesturing at the rest of her fellow mer-folk.

“Yeah, Lotor just fuckin’ napped him, just straight off the beach. I think he’s pissed that Keith was hanging out with me, or something like that,” He explains, treading water as he continues to talk. “Look, I’ll be sure to like… tell someone you’re here? I won’t leave you guys here to die or whatever. I just really need to get my friend back. Later!!” He yells giving them a two-finger salute before he paddles away.

“Good luck, two-legged one. I hope you find him,” The mermaid smiles, it’s a sharp toothy grin, her teeth serrated and pointed much like a shark, but it’s comforting nonetheless.

Okay, so he’s in the biggest cell… which just so happens to be the most heavily guarded one. Lance swims around the perimeter, taking note of all possible exits and entrances. Every fifteen or so meters is a small window, about the size of two bricks. It’s glass and bar free, just an open gap in the wall that leaves an unobstructed view of the hall and the adjacent cells. They’re mostly empty where he is, the cells are spacious and luxurious. This must be for the higher profile criminals; if such a thing exists.

The few mermaids that are in the cells are tall and buff, their tails are easily as long as Lance is, their torso roughly the same size as his. Their tails wrap around themselves, razor-sharp fins sticking out along their bodies. Their tails remind him of tentacles if anything, the way that it wraps around objects, moving them around as he lies motionless on their individual couches in each cell. 

He peeks through each window, spotting countless mermaids that could kill him in countless ways, but no Keith. He listens carefully as he swims too, hoping to hear anything other than inmates coughing.

 As if on cue he hears something further ahead. “Fuck off Janet, I’m not going to your fucking baby shower.” Did Keith just make a vine reference? _Oh god_ , Lance can die happy. He’s going to bust in there and propose to Keith on the spot, just down on one knee as Lotor tries to strangle him, because _holy shit_. Keith made a **joke** , a human one at that.

There’s a strangled noise, mirroring something akin to annoyance. “My names Lotor, you know this. I’m asking you to eat dinner, not shower babies.” The tension that Keith’s comment and lightened instantly floods back in tenfold, hitting Lance like a ton of bricks. Is Keith not eating?

“and you know and I’m not eating anything you make,” Keith snaps, only cementing Lances suspicions further, it’s only been a little over a week since Lance last saw Keith, but if he hasn’t eaten at all he’d be too weak to make snappy comments. So, maybe he’s just eating the bare minimum. Even if that’s the case, it doesn’t make Lance feel any better.

“I didn’t make it, god, you think I’d go anywhere near the kitchen? That’s the chef's job,” Lotor sighs, sounding much like a spoilt brat. “You know the drill, I’m going to leave this hear, and collect it later when I bring you something else. Please eat, Keith.” Lotor is almost pleading at the end, a softness in this voice that could be misconstrued as friendship without context.

Lance slowly creeps up to the window, peering through when he’s positive Lotor has long since swum away. The sight makes stomach tie in knots and drop all at the same time. Keith’s sitting in his cell, his tail stretched out lavishly as he leans against the wall in a far corner, the light only just hitting his fins. His hair floats around him, creating a sort of frizz that Lance associates with humidity. His fins are fully expanded, flapping back and forth as it pushes water past his gills. His fingers are webbed, thin strips of red connecting his second knuckle on each hand, specks of black in the translucent layer. Lance finds himself wondering if this is how Keith always looks, the side that he never gets to see.

His eyes are shut as his head rests against the wall, humming quietly to himself. The notes carry through the water, quiet low notes filling the hall as his fingers tap against his tail. Lance finds himself smiling lifting himself up a little bit higher to get a better look. He found him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [My Tumblr](https://theaviandragon.tumblr.com/) If you want to talk to me, I'm always checking it, plus with season six coming out in like 12 hours, get ready for some unholy screeching.


	22. The Rescue

Lance has never been… great, with planning. He’s always been a go-with-the-flow kind of guy, where he’ll just do something on instinct and hope everything goes okay. He wouldn’t really call himself impulsive? More just, too lazy to actually come up with a plan and stick with it.

He’s gotten himself into some sticky situations throughout his life thanks to his way of thinking, but, he’s gotten himself into some damn good ones too. It’s only because he rushed into chasing after Keith that he even met the mermaid (after a few weeks of quietly feeding him, of course). But, this situation has to be pretty damn high on his list of failures.

He really should have come up with some kind of plan before tying up mermaids and hoping to luck his way into the prison. He should have, but he didn’t. Of all things to plan, saving your fish boyfriend – is he even his boyfriend? Actually, that a whole different can of worms that Lance doesn’t really want to open right now. Either way, this is something he really should have planned out.

Keith’s cell his tinted a pale red as light reflects off of his scales in perfect rays, the water glittering in the sun around him. Each cell appears a different colour as the light reflects off the different shades of scales on each mermaid, their scales glittering in the sunlight. If it wasn’t for the clear frown on his face, Lance would almost call the scene beautiful. Keith is still quietly chirping under his breath – presumably cursing out Lotor – as he fiddles with the small device strapped firmly to his ankle, the serrated blades pressed against the flesh of his scales without actually cutting into him.

There are sliver trays littering the entire room, piles of food on each one, each bowl of… _something_ , lying there completely untouched. Lance glances behind him at the sunlight that’s filtering in through the water, and in turn in Keith’s cell through the window. If he can just catch his attention… He can’t just yell out to the mermaid, that’d only catch the attention of the other inmates, and by extension the guards.

Lance watches as Keith tosses a small pebble back and forth in his hands, the oval rock bouncing off of the webbing in his fingers with each toss. For a moment Lance’s mind flickers back to his grade eight literature class.

He was sitting in the back of the room, doodling in his book as the teacher rambled on about god knows what. The class was stuck in a heated discussion, the class pretty evenly split down the middle as they debated. It was a common occurrence in that class, the grade always seemed to find a way to argue about their latest class assigned novel.

“No, Erin, you only think that because you’re a hopeless romantic!” One of the girls yelled, her blonde piggy tails bobbing as she slammed her hands down on her desk. The teacher actually encouraged these kinds of disputes, she always said it was a good way to teach students how to cooperate and comprise; but really it was because she couldn’t be bothered breaking apart the fights. “It makes logical sense! He was trying to grab her attention without letting her parents know, therefore he threw pebbles at her window!”

“No way! It’d so grab the attention of the parents, they’re only like two rooms away from her!” Lance always zoned out during those classes, he always preferred to doodle or do homework from other classes. He never really cared much for whatever literature piece they were assigned, it always ended the same – a massive classroom argument.

The class was caught up in a massive argument surrounding the logistics of pebble throwing. It was dumb really. Half of the class was arguing that the parent would have heard them and stepped outside to see what was happening, while the other half was arguing that it was a perfectly valid way of grabbing the attention of someone. Overall, it was a pointless debate.

“They’re sleeping! She was awake and waiting for him and even she barely heard them!! Long story short, you’re a stank ass hoe.” You really can’t expect a class of eighth graders to be anything aside from immature, especially during debates.

“Lance! Back me up here!!” One of the girls whined when she spotted him huddled in his corner at the back of the class.

“I really don’t care, like at all. I guess he could have like shone a light in her window or something, that way he wouldn’t make any sound. That’d be better than possibly breaking her window, or he could just like… text her.” Lance quickly went back to doodling in his book, most of it being him scribbling whichever girl he liked at the time with his last name. Looking back, “ _Nyma McClain_ ” never really sounded right.

Anyway, the only thing Lance ever learnt from those lessons is that teenagers will argue about anything if given the chance, and light is an excellent way to grab someone’s attention.

Lance pulls at the small chain wrapped around his wrist the red lion keychain hanging loosely off of his wrist, the shine dulled by the water that surrounds it. He pulls harshly at the metal chain, the links digging harshly into his skin.

With a silent snap, one of the links finally breaks into two and the chain falls from his wrist. The lion chain slides cleanly off the chain and into his outstretched palm. Lance kicks up to the window once again, holding his hand up in the small gap, his shoulders to his forehead only barely visible in the gap. He carefully holds the chain up towards the arrows of sunlight that are filtering in from the surface, watching as a smaller and more direct beam of light shoots through the open window.

He angles the chain as he moves the light around the room, purposely angling it over Keith’s tail as it flickers across the room. He uses it as a makeshift laser pointer to grab Keith’s attention, the single dot of light shooting across the room. Keith’s head pokes up as his eyes follow after the light, his fins poking up ever so lightly from their previously drooped position, the spines on his tail flaring up defensively.

Keith’s eyes trail up the stream if light to the window in front of him. The entire world screeches to a halt for a moment. The waves above them freeze in place, the cloud stop drifting through the sky, to them, everything stops the second their eyes meet.

“Lance…” Keith sounds almost breathless, his words coming out in a gasp. For a moment they merely look into each other’s eyes, his shocked expression quickly melts away into a gentle one as his eyes soften. He smiles warmly as he weakly laughs under his breath, the ridiculousness of the situation washing over him. He bites his lip as he fights off a smile, his fins waving around his face as he looks at Lance.

He’s so beyond gone for this boy.

Lance watches as the scales on Keith’s face shift from a blood red to a hot pink, his entire body seeming to perk up at the mere sight of the other boy. Lance is probably a sight for sore eyes. Lance waves through the gap in the window, not bothering to speak up from where he is. He really doesn’t want to catch anyone’s attention. 

Keith shoots up and rushes to the cell bars, his hands wrapping around the bars as he presses himself up against them, his tail curling up behind him. “W-what are you doing here? How did you find me!?” Lance presses a finger to his lips when Keith starts getting louder, his eyes burning with hope as he grips the bars tightly. He’s smiling widely as he looks at Lance.

Keith quickly glances around him at the other inmates, only just being able to see into the cells. The vast majority are napping or completely oblivious of what’s happening. “There’s an entrance around the front… no one guards the inside of the prison, they’re too cheap for that. If Lotor isn’t around, the inside of the prison is completely abandoned. They station guards on the outside to give the illusion of security,” Keith whispers, periodically glancing around him each time he pauses. “If you can get in here, one good kick should break the bars.”

With a series of stealth rolls (that turned out far worse than he expected), Lance finds himself in the prison. Yeah, turns out it’s way too hard to roll underwater, the whole floating thing really makes it harder to roll. Bascially, fuck the ocean, he can't even look cool when breaking someone out of prisons. That's like the entire point of prison breaks! To do cool flips and rolls, but noooo, the ocean has to ruin his fun once again!

Everything in the prison is an off-eggshell white, each and every wall the same shade, not a single splash of colour anywhere else. Each cell is identical, the same couches and tables in each and every room, not a single variation. He can’t say he expected anything else, it is a prison after all. Vines grow down from cracks in the building, long winding roots and leaves breaking through the makeshift clay building.

From closer, he can see exactly what Keith meant. The entire prison looks like it’s falling apart, it’s secure enough to hold its prisoners, but it doesn’t do it comfortably. The cell bars are an orange-maroon, the once thick iron bars rusted down until they’re less than half their original size. A few bars have already fallen off, the odd gap in each gate left by missing bars.

He grinds to a halt when a pale arm shoots out of a cell, red scales littering its fingertips. There’s a soft grinding of the scales against his shoulder as the mermaid traces over whatever they can reach. It’s clear they’re trying to ground themselves, make sure that he isn’t just an illusion. “I missed you so much. So much,” Keith’s voice breaks as he whispers quietly, his hand trailing down Lance's bicep, to his forearm and eventually his hand. The webbing of his fingers push awkwardly against him, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s corny, but he’s also a weak man.

Lance swims forward as he holds his hand up against the bars, intertwingling his fingers with Keith’s as he presses his face to the bars, Keith doing the same. Lance reaches out with his other hand and carefully presses a hand to his cheek, the other boy leaning warmly into the touch. “I’m going to get you out of here okay? I’m not leaving you, not now,” Lance promises, his forehead still pressed against the bars as he looks into Keith’s eyes.

“I didn’t want you to risk yourself to save me, but I always knew you’d do it anyway,” Keith says. “I knew you’d come for me.” The touches are chase and short, both boys trying to pull each other as close as they can with the bars placed between them, their hands never separating.

Lance knows he doesn’t have much time before Lotor checks back in, he’s already been beyond lucky with how well things have gone so far. “Okay, stand back.” Keith swims back a few meters, pressing his back against the adjacent wall as instructed. “This is going to be loud, so the second the bars are down we have to run.” Keith nods. Lance holds the bars tight as he swings his legs up, his body floating horizontally in the water. He pulls himself down harshly with his arms and slams his feet into the bars, a deafening squeak ripping through the prison as the bars move. He kicks again and again until they suddenly fly across the room with a loud clatter.

“Keith, come on we have to go! We have to go now.” Lance grabs Keith’s hand through the now open gap in the bars and pulls him through, his mind running at a million miles an hour. If anyone is nearby, there’s no doubting that they heard that. “Keith, come on!” Lance pulls again, tugging the mermaid down the hall with ferocity and urgency. He wants to have an emotional reunion where they cry and hug, but he just doesn't have time for that. They need to leave, now. They can hug later, right now they just need to get to safety. 

“Lance! Lance wait, I need to help them! They’re like me, they’re his victims too!” Keith snaps, pulling against Lance’s iron grip on his wrist like a disobedient toddler.

“Fine! Just grab the keys on your way out and toss them to someone, they can help free each other. But, we have to go! I’m not risking losing you again!” He has to hold up his end of the deal too, Acxa helped him track down Keith and all she asked for in return was to free her friend. Lance is a man of his word, after all.

Just as promised, Keith steals a large ring of keys that are hanging up by the entrance, he turns around as the keys jingle around in his clenched fist. He clicks and chirps in rhythmic patterns as he fumbles through the keys, messily shoving a thick black key into the lock. With a loud squeak the pushes the door open as the key sit neatly in the lock. The mermaid goes to thank (Lance can only assume that's the case) the two before it's eyes slowly trail down to Lance's legs, it's gaze focused on his feet. The mermaid hisses loudly as it's fins flare. Keith hisses right back as he puts himself between Lance and the mermaid, his fins flaring in a similar fashion. 

The mermaid glares one final time and pulls the key out of the lock, turning around with a sharp whip of it's tail. Keith lowly hisses and swims the other way, dragging Lance behind him as they make for the exit. There's distant chirping echoing through the hall, countless doors all squeaking open at once. Keith yanks Lance through the open door and instantly takes off, giving Lance no time to catch his breath. 

Keith starts dragging Lance through the water as his tail beats violently, each flick of his tale sending shockwaves through the water around them as he swims with everything he has. The bubble around Lance's head is deformed by the sheer speed, the circular shape quickly turning more oval-like as they swim. Before the prison fades from view, Lance turns around to see hoards of mermaids fleeing the building, tails of all colours disappearing into the seaweed forest the surrounds the prison. Good luck to them.

“I can’t believe you came. I always thought you would, but you really saved me,” Keith yells back at Lance as they continue to swim through the water, their hands still tightly laced together. They swim past countless shipwrecks and small clusters of houses, Lance can just make out the figure of a few mermaids swimming in the distance as Keith powers through the water. 

Keith swims and swim and swims, Lance's legs only just keeping up with the constant swishing of Keith's tail, he's really only swimming to reduce the drag he's causing for Keith. It's been ten minutes, maybe twenty, but Keith doesn't seem to be showing any signs of slowing. Lance can see his gills working overtime, the small slits fanning in and out rapidly, his fins are pressed firmly against his face with the water pressure.

“We were all worried, everyone misses you, Keith.” That’s the understatement of the century, Hunk cried when Lance explained what happened, and he only cried harder when he then explained that he couldn’t tell the others. Shiro wouldn’t stop texting Lance about Keith, Pidge did constant location checks on his phone – only to find nothing. Everyone was worried sick, Lance most of all.

“I miss them too. I don’t want to go back to the ocean, I want to stay with you all. Down here I’m an abomination, my dad never even notices if I’m gone. It’s like I don’t exist. You guys care. No one else would have noticed I was missing, let alone come after me. But… you did.” Keith comes to a stop as the water grows shallower, eventually reaching the point where Keith can barely swim without poking his head out of the water. They've got to be miles away from the prison by now, or at least far enough away that Lotor can't find Keith again. Please god don't let him find Keith again.

The bubble pops as Lance surfaces, everything about the outside world finally flooding back. Fresh air rushes into his lungs as he gasps loudly, the air is almost sweet as flowers blow on a distant hill. He can smell the salty air and the summer breeze, the distant sounds of cars honking fill his ears once again as human life floods his senses. He can feel the sun beating down on his skin, the cold chill of the ocean washing away as the sun shines down on him yet again. 

The sand digs into his skin as he pulls himself out of the ocean, his entire body aches from head to toe but he's never felt so  _alive_. Keith follows closely after him, his tail dragging across the sand as he flops down on the sand, groaning loudly as exhaustion finally takes it's hold. “Honestly, I could get sunburnt and I’d be happy,” Keith says with a weak laugh, still panting as he tries to catch his breath.

“You said you didn’t want to go back to the ocean, right?” Lance asks, tilting his head to the side to gauge Keith’s reaction. Keith hums noncommittedly as he continues to stare out at the waves. Lance slowly places his hand over Keith’s, the physical contact remaining nothing new after the ordeal that has been the past hour. “Then don’t. Stay with us.” God, he wants nothing more than for Keith to stay, for him to finally leave the Ocean and live happily on land. To actually be with the people he cares about and not the people he was born around.

The sun is slowly setting in the distance, the sky reflecting off of the water as the sun falls over the horizon. The sky shifts from light shades of pink to vibrant oranges as silver clouds dance across it. The trees blow as a warm breeze rolls in, Keith’s hair blowing around in sync as the water slowly dries off. It’s a gentle reminder for him, he’s safe, he’s out of the ocean. He’s back with him. He'll call the others to help cut Keith out of the monitor later, right now, he just wants to enjoy the peace and quiet. 

 “Hey, Lance?” Keith looks over at him with an unreadable expression, his lips pursed as he glances down at his tail, drops of water still cascading down his tail as he dries. Keith sits up slowly, as he talks, his face flushed a light shade of pink. 

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for… everything,” He says genuinely, his voice warm as he talks. He looks back up at Lance with his magenta eyes, purple quickly enveloping Lances vision. His eyes practically sparkle in the sunlight, his eyes appearing a thousand different shades of purple. “And… sorry about this.”

“Sorry, for wa- _Mpfh_!” Lance’s eyes widen just as Keith’s close, her mermaid suddenly seeming a bit too close for comfort. Keith is leaning right in front of him, his hands digging into the sand as his tail rests behind him. Keith's lips are against his in an instant, the once minuscule distance between the two completely disappearing. 

Suddenly, Lance is downing.

He’s pulled into the undertow before he can say anything else, a pair of warm lips against his before he can take a breath. His entire body is fuzzy, everything muffled as his heart pounds in his ears. Every tiny movement, every tiny breath sends Lance into another spiral. When Keith places his hand on Lance's cheek to deepen the kiss, another wave crashes down over him, sending Lance deeper into the ocean. He's drowning on dry land, the sensation of Keith pressed against him in sending him into a spiral. Every nerve in alight and going off all at once, a thousand mini fireworks exploding in every part of his body.

Finally, he pushes back with a ferocity of his own, he can practically feel the tension melt out of Keith when he finally responds. Their lips fit together perfectly, Lance threads his fingers through Keith’s hair and pulls him closer, the sensation is too much, yet not enough all at the same time. Keith's lips are warm and soft against his, the sun still beating down on them as they lie on the beach, wrapped up in each others arms. 

He’s drowning in Keith. 

And for once, he doesn’t want to come up for air.


End file.
